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THE DEVELOPMENT OF 
THE CHILD 



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THE DEVELOPMENT OF 



THE CHILD 



BY 



NATHAN OPPENHEIM 

ATTENDING PHYSICIAN TO THE CHILDREN'S DEPARTMENT 
OF MT. SINAI HOSPITAL DISPENSARY 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 
1902 

All rights reserved 



151115' 
.Ofe 



COPVWGHT, 1898, 

By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped April, 1898. Reprinted November, 18 
August, 1899 ; December, 1901. 



Worfeootr JBwsa 

1. S. CuBhing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 

Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 



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Za Mu Mite 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

Introductory i 



CHAPTER n 
Facts in the Comparative Development of the Child i i 

CHAPTER HI 

Facts in the Comparative Development of the Child 

{continued) 37 

CHAPTER IV 

Comparative Importance of Heredity and Environ- 
ment 66 

CHAPTER V 

The Place of the Primary School in the Develop- 
ment of the Child 93 

CHAPTER VI 

The Place of Religion in the Development of the 

Child 122 

vii 



Vlll CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VII 

PAGS 

The Value of the Child as a Witness in Suits at 

Law 148 

CHAPTER VHI 
The Development of the Child-Criminal . . • I7S 

CHAPTER IX 

The Child's Development as a Factor in producing 

the Genius or the Defective 207 

CHAPTER X 
Institutional Life in the Development of the Child 241 

CHAPTER XI 
The Profession of Maternity 266 



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MENANDER 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 



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CHAPTER I 

Introductory 

One of the noteworthy characteristics of the time 
is the so-called moral revival which has shown itself 
in almost every part of the civilized world. It has 
made its imprint upon England, France, Germany, 
Italy, Spain, and Russia. In our own country it has 
wrought some striking changes. These changes have 
been very plainly seen all through the common life 
of the time, and one of the most interesting features 
of this revival is the diversity of form which it has 
assumed. From one end of the social fabric to the 
other the same note is heard ; whether in regard to 
the subject of dress, or of charity, whether business 
methods or housekeeping, the spirit of the hour calls 
for a strenuous effort, a desire to improve upon the 
past, a noble dissatisfaction that can be quieted only 
by an active exhibition of individual endeavor. In 
fact, the keynote of the whole movement seems to be 
an appeal to the individual to assert whatever energy 



2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

he has to the end of insuring his best development. 
The individual is recognized as the ultimate element 
of the mass, and therefore plans that are meant to 
improve the mass must begin with each single person. 
Even in politics, the new-forming touch is felt, and 
political methods are beginning to take another and 
newer shape. It is for reasons such as these that 
M. Charles Secretan has wisely said : " Political salva- 
tion in a democracy depends solely on private efforts, 
on an inward mission." 

One may rightly go further, saying that the salvation 
which depends upon private efforts, upon an inward 
mission, is not confined to political life. In fact, in 
the whole range of human affairs, this sentiment of 
devotion to the cause of a personal idea, to the cause 
of an individual belief, is the strongest force that can 
actuate men. It has the inspiring force that makes 
martyrs ; it begins a crusade, works miracles, incites 
to heroism. The great captains of all time are the 
men who have most keenly felt it. The light which 
radiates from it is so strong that whoever comes into 
contact with it becomes thereby illumined. It acts 
as a sort of spiritual infection, whose range of influence 
extends over the whole race. In times past, when 
the spirit of the people was more clearly that of a 
mass, it acted generally from some individual source, 
from which it spread by waves to surrounding people. 
Rightly enough, therefore, ancient history was really 



INTRODUCTORY 3 

one-man history, individual history. National and 
world events meant impulses which originated in one 
man, or a small group of persons controlled by one 
man; and whatever force he had was the real motive 
energy which agitated his time. 

Nowadays things do not happen in quite the same 
way. Naturally, the influence of a strong man is, and 
always must be, felt. But outside of this there is a 
great tendency not to follow a leader quite as blindly 
as in the past. Men require something of a reason ; 
they want an excuse for unquestioning obedience. 
They feel the need of answering for their acts to a 
conscience. In other words, there is a growing ten- 
dency, although it may at the beginning be small, to 
think independently, to act independently. And where 
this individuality of action is touched by the glow of 
a spiritual idea, one begins to feel something of this 
doctrine of private effort, of an inward mission. And 
when the tendency to mass-action, to ready-made be- 
liefs, is still further impeded, the belief in the self- 
sufficiency of each man, each social unit, must be still 
more emphatic. 

However, this trait may be obtained, not by a spon- 
taneous evolution, not by a blind adherence to the 
ability of each person to develop in the highest way, but 
by such intelligent means and methods as will put him 
as nearly as possible on the highest plane that the ma- 
jority of his fellow-creatures hold. This ideal equality 



4 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

— far different from anything which society now pos- 
sesses — will act for the interests of the race in the 
broadest extent. The dictum that all men are born 
free and equal is plainly true only in an academic 
interpretation. It certainly is not true as far as the 
actual facts of their careers can show. As far as one 
can see, there is as little actual freedom in the world 
as one can possibly imagine. Almost every adult, on 
reaching maturity, has a certain range of limitations, 
working much more rigorously than statutes enacted 
by law, which determine in what ways he must advance, 
stand still, or go backward ; at the same time his 
freedom of choice, even of desire, is similarly defined. 
And, after all, one is most apt to think of his freedom 
as permission to exercise himself within the demarca- 
tions set up by his environment ; or one might compare 
it to the freedom which a prisoner, bound hand and 
foot, has to contract his muscles. In spite of such 
freedom, he still is bound. And actually, a member 
of a civilized community is bound physically, mentally, 
spiritually. He can no more be said to have a real 
liberty of choice than a bird in a cage. 

And so far as the question of what he is entitled to, 
what he has a right to, goes, there is very little more 
to be said. It is hard to find any natural right that 
really belongs to him, excepting, possibly, in some few 
cases, the right to die. Otherwise, every one of his 
so-called rights is the result of social and legal enact- 



INTRODUCTORY 5 

ment, things to which he becomes entitled by virtue 
of his manner of subscribing to the ruhngs of the 
society in which he lives. The fact of being born in 
this society puts upon him the necessity of living in it, 
and as soon as he arrives upon the stage where the 
decision of affairs rests largely upon his immediate 
volition, he directly comes to see that his power of 
choice is very limited, that his faculty of private effort 
is generally very small, that only under the greatest 
difficulties may he have an inward mission. Whatever 
these forces may be, they occur not necessarily as 
spontaneous emotions, but rather as the result of fric- 
tion, association, generally called environment. 

By a related process of thought, one can easily realize 
that the whole sum of life belongs in its general clas- 
sification to environment. The human being, in the 
first part of his existence, is much more unformed than 
is generally thought. The determining factors are not 
as parents usually consider them. A strong belief in 
heredity has become so general that direct effects of 
descent are looked for with all the confidence and 
sureness of settled and incontrovertible facts. The 
good father is supposed to have a good son, the virtuous 
mother is supposed to bear an equally virtuous daugh- 
ter; by a seeming parity of reasoning, people know 
that homing pigeons will produce homing pigeons, 
fox terriers will bring forth their kind. Very rarely 
is the utter lack of similitude between the two sets of 



6 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

examples seen and insisted upon. The qualities of 
goodness and virtue are purely functional, the result of 
friction, social interaction, environment. The question 
of underlying physical structure, of the disposition of 
bony, muscular, and nervous tissue, is one of purely 
somatic, organic composition. And between the two 
there is the difference of natural inheritance and arti- 
ficial acquirements. 

When this distinction becomes a clearly understood 
fact, people will see that a new set of " rights " should 
be counted upon ; not a right of objective demands, 
but rather that of subjective insistence. Parents may 
elect to gratify their affections, pride, and interest, by 
modifying the fluid potentialities of their offspring in 
the way that will bring most force, comfort, and welfare 
to all concerned. The doctrine of heredity, as com- 
monly held, not only is falsely applied to human 
descents, but also renders the wisest and best efforts 
of training unnecessary and useless. For if at birth 
the child's bodily and mental organization is complete, 
if the acquired characteristics of parents are handed 
down to offspring, then there the matter ends. Every 
remarkable parent would have equally remarkable chil- 
dren, every deficient person would curse his descend- 
ants by a like deficiency ; work, training, striving after 
noble ideals, would be useless and silly. There would 
be an end of private efforts, of an inward mission. 

But matters are not so hopeless, as one, by following 



INTRODUCTORY 7 

closely the growth and development of the child, as he 
grows into youth and then into manhood, can see. His 
early stages are merely transitional ; the time of prepa- 
ration in which he changes from the microscopic mass 
of protoplasm, which is his form after conception, to 
the fully developed adult who constitutes the highest 
product of terrestrial evolution, is merely a phase of 
development. In these stages the young organism is 
played upon by an infinite number of influences that 
mould his body and mind according to their nature and 
kind. If the child is to be developed in the finest way, 
every possible influence that acts upon him should be 
controlled to serve the ends of development. The ener- 
gies that belong to building up this range of potential- 
ities should be of the finest quality, should have the 
greatest liberty of action, should be awarded the high- 
est place in the community. The training which the 
child is to get should be what is essentially designed 
for him in his unripe condition, for it cannot be similar 
to that of an adult. So long as one recognizes that the 
child is absolutely different from the adult, not only in 
size, but also in every element which goes to make up 
the final state of maturity, one is more apt to get a 
true method of development, which must gradually 
bear the results of a higher evolution. 

There is no doubt that many of the ideas and 
methods governing the treatment of children, what 
one is bound to provide for them, as well as what one 



8 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

may expect from them, are sadly deficient. The blame 
for this is to be laid not so much upon carelessness 
and indifference in parents and guardians (although 
these peculiarities exist), as upon a wrong conception 
of the problem. There is not enough of conviction in 
the minds of parents and guardians that the responsi- 
bility of their children's acts, either good or bad, rests 
upon their older shoulders, that the final outcome of 
these children's lives depends almost entirely upon 
the influences, the nutrition, the environment which 
the authority of the parents and guardians provide. 
The elements that are to be affected, being in an 
almost fluid state so far as susceptibility to change 
is concerned, require an unceasing care and attention. 
To break in upon the rule for a single week or day 
or hour defaces the beauty of the finished product, 
and leaves an opening for divergences from the best 
growth, that can later on be remedied, if at all, with 
difficulty. The bringing up of a child thus means 
a series of lessons in self-restraint, in watchfulness, 
in adherence to an ideal, for the parent even more 
than for the child. The child will fashion himself 
after the patterns that he sees; he does not grow 
according to some hard and fast rule that has been 
implanted in him before he is born. 

When this is appreciated, one will immediately see 
that the world has a wrong idea of its children. It 
looks upon them as adults, but slightly different, in 



INTRODUCTORY 9 

the details of small size, deficient strength, little ex- 
perience, from grown men and women. It believes 
that, were these details filled out and completed, the 
child would be the same as after the lapse of years 
he comes to be. And therefore, in consequence of 
this opinion, it provides surroundings for him that 
would be most fitted for a person of matured powers, 
who lacked strength and knowledge. The rules of 
conduct which result must, in the face of the child's 
real condition, be fundamentally false. Since he is 
in no way really like an adult, since his condition is 
one of continuous change, it follows that he needs a 
special treatment and environment, which must be 
modelled upon a correct conception of what he really 
is. This would necessitate a remoulding of his rela- 
tions and surroundings, an overhauling of ideas about 
comparative influences. So long as this is not done, 
we are apt to bear the penalty of thoughtlessness in 
unnecessarily deficient men and women, in the abuses 
which come from one-sided and twisted bodies and 
minds, in a stoppage of the evolution which goes hand 
in hand with the best evolution of the race. But 
first of all, we must see the truth, we must know 
exactly what children are, what their development 
is, and for what they are fitted. Later on it will be 
time enough to build up a system of positive treatment. 
Before construction, one must clear the ground, one 
must get rid of old material which is useless, which 



lO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

blocks the way. In the prospect of making a better 
future, is inspiration enough for the most prosaic mind. 
We must recast our conceptions of the function 
and the scope of our children ; we must look with 
unprejudiced eyes upon the part which they reasonably 
may be expected to play in the work of the world. 
We must conclude to give more and ask for less. It 
has been said that people in the world may be divided 
into three classes : Those who give little and ask for 
little, those who give little and ask for much, those 
who give much and ask for little. Into which classes 
the wise man should put himself may be left to the 
general conscience. The choice rightly made is in 
itself a discipline, a realization of the necessity for 
private efforts, for an inward mission. 



CHAPTER II 

Facts in the Comparative Development of the 
Child 

Children, according to common views, are looked 
upon as adults in small. Most parents never stop to 
think of the possibility or likelihood of their own 
mature condition being any different from the condi- 
tion of their little ones. This is somewhat remarkable, 
because the two are not, except in general ways, alike. 
Moreover, the whole world of animals seems to be 
similarly disposed so that the young require different 
conditions, different surroundings, different care, from 
the ordinary adult standard. Where the changes are 
very striking, as for instance, in the caterpillar, they 
are regarded as exceptions which bear no analogy in 
other creatures. There the transition from the creep- 
ing, rather plain-colored insect to the dormant, half- 
dead chrysalis, and then to the brilliant, fluttering 
butterfly, is so wonderful that even the dullest imagi- 
nation is touched ; for the wonder inheres not only 
in changed appearance, but also in changed methods 
of locomotion, food, general manner of life, 

II 



12 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

Caterpillars, however, are not the only creatures 
which show remarkable changes. The same idea holds 
good through all animal life, especially in the higher 
families. In fact, it is only in the very lowest forms 
that infancy and youth are alike. As a rule, animals, 
in proportion to the complexity of their organization 
and functions, mature late in life ; the higher the ani- 
mal, the longer, proportionally to the whole term of 
life, does it take to reach the full exercise of all his 
powers. A corollary of this is, that increasing com- 
plexity of organization and functions involves corre- 
spondingly great changes in actual physical states. 
This idea, although heretofore our attention has not 
been much called to it, is beautifully illustrated in 
human development. We have been in the habit of 
looking upon a child as a man in small, of looking 
upon a man as a child somewhat strengthened, with 
greater experience and knowledge. Outside of these 
factors of experience, knowledge, and strength, the 
child and man seem practically the same. So true is 
this observation that society founds its judgments 
accordingly, it prescribes its methods of education, of 
social and domestic care accordingly, it sees almost 
no differences outside of these adventitious ones be- 
tween them. 

As a matter of fact, it would be hard to find many 
salient factors, beyond the most fundamental laws, in 
which the infant and adult exactly resemble each other. 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 1 3 

Multiply the proportions of the infant to those of the 
adult, and you will have a being whose large head and 
dwarfed lower face, whose apex-like thorax, whose 
short arms and legs give a grotesque appearance. The 
two do not breathe alike, their pulse rates are not alike, 
the composition of their bodies is not alike. The most 
ordinary analysis shows this. Fehling gives the per- 
centage of water in a very young foetus as ninety-seven 
and five-tenths per cent. This proportion, instead of 
being a permanent feature, is merely a transitory one. 
It diminishes steadily until, after birth, it is seventy- 
four and seven-tenths per cent. The decrease con- 
tinues regularly, but more slowly, until in the adult 
it is only fifty-eight and five-tenths per cent. Even 
the common differences that are characteristic of 
various ages, and with which every one is familiar, 
have their foundations in actual differences of con- 
formation. For instance, one may say that children 
are more supple than adults, but not merely because 
they are younger ; it is rather because they have rela- 
tively a greater proportion of muscle tissue, and a 
smaller proportion of tendon. Thus there is actually 
less of the elements which make the body rigid. This 
change produces just as real an alteration in the physi- 
cal being of the person as the loss of the prehensible 
power of the great toe, the clinging faculty, and the 
sucking reflex, which fade away with the passage of 
infancy. Again, the common necessity of eating has 



14 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

different objects in the two ages : in the adult the 
repair of body waste is the only end sought ; in the 
child, besides this, there are additional reasons, such as 
the supplying of greater energy than at any previous 
time, and also the forming of entirely new tissue, such 
as would be commensurate with added growth. Like- 
wise the deprivation from food, starvation, is fatal for 
each in a different way ; in the adult death occurs 
because the amount of food is too small to atone for 
the processes of disintegration ; in the child the same 
result is reached for the same reason, plus the equally 
or more important one that the nervous system, on 
account of its unstable and unripe condition, more 
easily and quickly becomes exhausted. 

On more minute examination, one finds greater and 
greater differences, until one comes to believe that we 
have been trying to see our children in a totally false 
light. It is more than a figure of speech to say 
that the child is father of the man; it is rather a 
great bound of the imagination. The child is simply 
a stage in a development which is unstable, which 
changes in as due proportion as the embryo changes 
into the infant. From the moment of conception till 
full adult life, there is one continuous change that 
is steady, but decreasing in rapidity in proportion to 
the length of time during which it has been in prog- 
ress. The change is universal, the different parts of 
the body participating in it in varying degrees. The 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 1 5 

enumeration of some of these is so convincing as to 
justify examining Vierordt's table, which shows the per- 
centage weights in the new born and the adult.^ 

Some of these variations seem small when expressed 
in terms of percentage weight of the whole body ; but 
when they are stated in terms of percentage of their 
own weight, the result seems much different, and much 
greater. In this latter method one could state the 
increase in the heart to be from twelve to thirteen times 
the original size, in the liver about eleven times, in the 
lungs about twenty times, in the brain about four times, 
and so on. 

Take another particular instance : To say that the 

New Born Adult 

1 Skeleton 16.7% 15.350/0 

Muscles 23.4 43-09 

Skin 11.3 6.30 

Brain 14.34 2.37 

Spinal Cord 0.20 0.067 

Eyes 0.28 0.023 

Salivary Glands 0.24 0.12 

Thyroid Gland 0.24 0.05 

Lungs 2.16 2.01 

Heart 0.89 0.52 

Thymus Gland 0.54 0.0086 

Stomach and Intestines 2.53 2.34 

Pancreas 0.12 0.15 

Liver 4.39 2.77 

Spleen 0.41 0.346 

Suprarenal Capsules 0.31 0.014 

Kidneys 0.88 0.48 

Testicles 0.037 0.08 



1 6 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

child is a man in small is just as wrong as to say that 
the bony skeleton is the foundation and the framework 
upon which are laid the softer parts which it ultimately 
supports. As a fact, the bones in their immaturity are 
moulded, are pulled into this line and that by the very 
muscles and tendons which they exceed so greatly in 
rigidity. A little thought will show this to be suffi- 
ciently natural, for the bones, as every other part of the 
body, are continually changing, and show material dif- 
ferences between their infantile and adult conditions. 
Their final condition, as well as their function, is so dif- 
ferent from their changing phases of growth, that the 
resemblance between them is merely a general one. 
This is interesting enough to demand an analysis of 
a characteristic bone, say the tibia,i which in itself has 
a deep enough meaning to serve as the basis of a 
theory of development and education. It is not so 
much a question of small variations in body composi- 
tion, as of the principle underlying these variations. 

Looked at in this light, it does not require much 
effort to show why the infant's bones are softer and 





2M0S. 


9 Mos. 


3 Yrs. 


19 Yrs. 


25 Yrs. 


1 Phosphate of Calcium . . 


57-54 


48.55 


59.74 


54-84 


57.18 


Carbonate of Calcium 


6.02 


5-79 


6.00 


10.82 


8.95 


Phosphate of Magnesium 


1.03 


1. 00 


1.34 


1.26 


1.70 


Chloride of Sodium . . 


0-73 


1.24 


0.63 


0.76 


0.60 


Cartilaginous Substance . 


33-861 


41.50 


31-34 


31-37 


2954 


Fatty Matter .... 


0.82 


1.92 


0.95 


0.92 


1.84 


Organic Matter . . . 


34.68 


43-42 


32.29 


32.29 


31-36 


Inorganic Matter . . . 


65.32 


56.36 


67.71 


67.71 


68.42 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 1/ 

more vascular than the adult's, nor the ultimate impv)it 
of the change. One's attention is immediately turned 
to the idea of a consistent course of development. The 
difference, however, is not greater than what one sees 
in the marrow. This in the young is, in the first place, 
quite different in color from the adult form, being a 
fairly bright red ; this is caused by the great number 
of dilated blood-vessels. Also it is softer and holds a 
larger percentage of water. It is only by slow degrees 
that this marrow is changed into the yellow, fatty sub- 
stance which it afterwards comes to be. If one saw 
in an adult the condition that is regularly seen in a 
child, one would certainly pronounce it pathological. 
If we take the item of cartilage, as another particular 
instance, one finds that the variations still continue.^ 
Again, the infantile muscles are noticeably different 
from the adult, in that they contain a greater percent- 
age of water, and a smaller percentage of myosin, as 
well as extractives, fat, and inorganic ingredients. 
Also, in the fcetal blood the specific gravity is some- 
what lower than in the adult, and the specific gravity 
of the serum is markedly lower. On the other hand, 
in a few weeks there is so much change here that the 
specific gravity of the infant's blood is commonly 
higher than an adult's. The red corpuscles are in 
the infant poorer in haemoglobin, as seventy-six and 

1 In the child of six months the proportion of mineral salts in cartilage 
is 2.24 %. At three years it is 3 %, at nineteen it is 7.29 %. 
c 



1 8 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

eight-tenths is to one hundred while the stroma is 
richer. Again, the amount of fibrinogen is relatively 
small, as two is to seven. The amount of sodium in 
solution is larger and the potassium smaller. There 
is a lessened tendency to coagulation. In early foetal 
life the red corpuscles are nucleated, and do not attain 
their normal condition until after birth. Moreover, 
they are greater in number. Likewise is the infant's 
blood richer in white corpuscles than the adult's ; it 
is richer in the so-called young-form elements, while 
the "over-ripe" elements are only half as many. 
These white corpuscles remain relatively longer in 
the "unripe" condition than in adults, while the lat- 
ter show a larger percentage of the "over-ripe." In 
short, the blood of the new-born child is so clearly 
different from its later form, that Gundobin calls it, ac- 
cording to the ordinary standard of morphology, patho- 
logical. The difference in degree is so marked as to 
amount almost to a difference in kind. Finally, the 
weight of the infant's blood is relatively smaller than 
that of the adult's. 

During the whole course of growth there are the 
constant factors of variation, of irregularity. These 
point indubitably to the fact that infancy and child- 
hood are solely times of preparation, that in them- 
selves they have no fixed status. And experience 
shows that this condition of change is easily affected 
one way or another. As an example, one may take 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 19 

the methods of development which may clearly be 
seen in the long bones. These consist of a narrow 
body, with an enlargement at each end. In the bones 
of the forearm and upper arm the ends removed from 
the elbow show much more growth than those which 
go to form the joint, while in the lower extremity, 
the parts removed from the knee grow least. Where 
an untoward nutrition causes a variation from the 
natural development, consequent changes may occur 
directly or indirectly throughout the organism. The 
changes in relations in parts such as these joints are, 
in some cases, exceedingly interesting. An example 
may be seen in the capsule of the knee joint, which 
in early childhood extends for only a short distance 
along the bone; with increased age the capsule grows 
more than its proportionate degree, and so extends 
to a relatively higher position. This difference is so 
great that it influences the course of certain diseases, 
especially where fluids seek an outlet from the joint. 
There is no gradual and equable growth in all parts 
at the same time. Both rate and location of increase 
are unstable. What is more, in certain parts the 
adult condition and shape are only hinted at in early 
life, and for years maintain essential differences. In 
such cases the purely provisional character of young 
growth-forms is so evident, that all doubt about their 
unstable equilibrium is set at rest. 

We may take the growth of the mastoid bone as 



20 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

an example. The external petro-squamous suture ^ does 
not become obliterated until the end of the first year. 
Then for the first time the mastoid process becomes 
distinct. There is, naturally, a constant formation of 
new bone from the periosteum surrounding it ; this is 
accomplished the more rapidly because this perios- 
teum, as well as that of all the body, is less stable in 
infants, is looser, softer, and more vascular than in 
adults. Thus the walls of the cavity of this bone 
continuously become thicker. Even here the growth 
is not absolutely regular, and on the average, the 
walls will grow from one millimetre at birth to one 
centimetre at nine or ten years. This new bone is 
fine cancellous tissue, which at puberty begins to un- 
dergo a process of absorption in scattered spots. Ab- 
sorption goes on gradually but surely until these areas 
are thus changed into a number of connecting air cells, 
eventually lined by a delicate mucous membrane. 

The same feature of irregularity is seen in the union 
of the bones of the head : while the fontanelles or 
inter-membranous spaces at the angles of the parietal 
bones normally disappear before the age of four years, 
nevertheless the occipital and sphenoid bones are not 
united at their basilar parts until the twentieth. Thus 
one naturally looks for a greater or less persistence of 
foetal conditions, which are then seen to disappear 

1 The line of junction between the petrous and squamous portions of the 
temporal bone (in the head). 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 21 

only gradually with increasing age. The persistence of 
these conditions is exceedingly interesting, and proves 
the wide distinction existing between infant and adult 
forms. In the roof of the middle ear or tympanum in 
infancy, one finds a petro-squamous suture that permits 
a close connection between the blood-vessels of the 
brain and the middle ear. This connection gradually 
disappears with age, but before it comes about, inflam- 
mations are with comparative frequency transmitted 
from the lining membrane to the dura mater, the 
tougher of the membranes surrounding the brain. 
The existence of such special development forms has 
an important practical bearing, so that the physician, 
when treating children, has a different problem before 
him than when treating adults. Another instance of 
gradual development is in the foramen cacum, a notch 
in the frontal bone, which usually remains patent until 
or after puberty. A corresponding fact is the late 
appearance of the frontal and sphenoidal sinuses in 
the skull, which although they appear about the second 
and third years respectively, do not attain completion 
until after puberty. 

Another instance of incomplete development in early 
life is in the orbital plate of the frontal bone, which 
commonly does not attain its full form until after 
puberty. The change in the dimensions of the orbit 
shows clearly the irregular growth ; for while in the 
adult it barely equals one-third of the face in height, it 



22 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

makes at birth nearly one-half of it. This means that 
the length of the face and head in the young child is 
relatively smaller than in the adult. A similar rule 
cannot be made for the circumference, for even in early 
childhood this measurement is almost equal to that of 
the adult. The lack of proportion between the differ- 
ent dimensions of the face at various times is thus 
made clearly apparent, and the purely provisional 
nature of youthful forms is thus very clear. The upper 
and lower jaws also are very interesting, on account of 
their lack in infancy of permanent proportions. They 
begin to ossify early in foetal life, and keep on 
developing and changing all through the years of child- 
hood, until after puberty, when the final formation 
gradually makes itself evident. The upper jaw is 
really the most important part of the face, and at the 
same time it is the part which, naturally enough, is 
least developed at birth ; therefore it undergoes the 
most salient changes before it comes to rest. As 
every one knows, changes in one part necessitate 
changes in all related parts, so that there is no one 
portion that one may look upon as really stable. 
Again, one may take as an example the layer of car- 
tilage which acts like a cushion between those im- 
portant parts of the skull, the basi-occipital and the 
basi-sphenoidal bones ; this substance does not allow 
them to unite until after the twentieth year. Thus 
their final condition is essentially different from what 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 23 

it was in the preceding years. Also, in early life one 
finds such a disturbance in relations going on that the 
posterior border of the vomer ^ changes from its very 
oblique direction, until it becomes almost horizontal. 

These disturbances serve to alter the entire shape of 
the head, as one can see by a few measurements. In 
the infant the breadth of the skull in its thickest 
diameter equals or even may exceed the total height 
of the skull and face, while in the adult it is about 
three-quarters of it. Again, the breadth measured 
between the outside surfaces of the cheek bones or 
zygomata is to the height of the face in the adult as 
nine is to eight, while in the infant it is about as ten 
is to four. Or one may look at the cranium and face, 
which in the adult bear the relation of two to one, but 
in the infant that of eight to one. This downward 
growth of the face is very characteristic and very im- 
portant, especially when thought of in regard to its 
influence on the rest of the head and the neck. Origi- 
nally the base of the skull is nearly flat. From this 
there come the rise of the basilar process in front of 
the foramen magnum? the angle thus formed with the 
body of the sphenoid bone, and the rapid descent of 
the vomer. Also one finds at first the squamous por- 
tion of the temporal bone to be relatively small as com- 

1 A thin, irregular bone situated between the two nasal fossae. 
^ The large opening in the lower surface of the skull which transmits 
the spinal cord. 



24 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

pared with the parietal. Some years later we find that 
this squamous part has increased in size more than the 
parietal, and also has altered its plane so as to be more 
nearly vertical. Besides, it extends upwards on the outer 
surface of the squamous portion so as to overlap it. 
Before these changes have been made the nasal cavity 
is shallow and relatively long, the posterior nares are 
small, and the vomer approaches the horizontal. Thus 
the cavity of the mouth and posterior nares is very 
small, because the junction of nose and throat or naso- 
pharynx has very little height, and the perpendicular 
portion or ramus of the jaw is very oblique. At the 
same time, strangely enough, this lack of height goes 
together with another lack of proportion, for the dis- 
tance from the back of the hard palate to the soft 
parts of the pharynx (excluding the tonsils) is about 
as great, actually, as in the adult. The change in all 
these details is really marked, and if one takes them 
separately, one can plainly see it. For instance : the 
lower border of the nasal opening is at birth very little 
below the lowest point of the orbit, while in the adult 
the two planes are so far apart that one would not 
group them together. 

Such details as these, taken by themselves, may not 
be very interesting ; but when one looks at them in the 
whole, they help to form a general idea that is of 
the greatest value. Without them the characteristic 
features of infancy and childhood carry with them no 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 25 

particular meaning. With them arranged in an orderly 
fashion, a plan of growth and development immediately 
becomes apparent. By means of such a plan, the needs 
of a proper environment stand out clearly and plainly — 
much more so than they otherwise could. Besides, an 
increasing knowledge of the various facts mentioned in 
this chapter takes on an ever-enlarging interest that 
grows with the thoroughness of one's information. 

In the eye one finds about two-thirds of the growth 
accomplished in earliest infancy. On the other hand, 
the I'ecessus opticus} a transverse groove leading to the 
optic nerve, is more marked at birth than in adult life. 
But most of all, the macula lutea, the centre of vision 
in the retina, is developed only after birth. The new- 
born child is not prepared to see, and for some time 
afterwards, as sight comes to him, he sees but dimly. 
This is on a par with the unripe condition of the lach- 
rymal glands, which for some weeks (and in some cases 
for months) secrete no tears at all. One should keep 
these things in mind, for their bearing upon the right 
exercise of the child's function of sight is of great im- 
portance. With this knowledge one would never make 
the mistake of expecting from a child the normally fine 
visual relations of an adult. The ear in its several parts, 
after an analogous fashion, develops very unevenly. The 
structures of the internal ear, the tympanic cavity, and 
the auditory ossicles are fairly well formed shortly after 

^ Described in 1872. 



26 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

birth ; but while this is true enough, the external audi- 
tory opening or meatus, the Eustachian tube, and the 
portion of the temporal bone behind the ear, undergo 
many modifications. Soon after birth the bony ring of 
the external ear or ammhis tympanicus begins to grow 
outwards to form the floor and anterior wall of the 
external auditory meatus, and forwards and inwards 
along the outer wall of the tympanum, reaching also a 
short distance in the outer wall of the Eustachian tube. 
At this time the meatus passes inwards and down- 
wards, and the drum of the ear or memhrana tympani 
is almost horizontal. 

In the ear, as well as in many other — if not all other 
— parts of the body, one can see in childhood the utter 
Jack of permanent form. When the parts of an organ 
are not only out of proportion, but also are foetal, and 
even primitive in their form, one comes to realize that 
human development is an exceedingly gradual process. 
As an example, one may cite the tragus, the promi- 
nence in front of the external opening of the ear. 
This part is commonly conical in childhood, a condition 
that very frequently exists before birth; and likewise 
it occurs as often in lower orders of the anthropoid 
family, such as apes. 

The gradual nature of growth is well shown in the 
development of the passage leading from the throat 
to the ear, the Eustachian tube. This in the foetus 
has its nasal opening below the level of the hard pal- 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 2/ 

ate ; at birth the two are on a level, while in the adult 
the opening is considerably higher. At birth the tube 
is about horizontal, but in the adult it has changed 
so much that its course is distinctly downward. In 
infancy this tube, just as we would expect, is shorter 
than in the adult, but at the same time it is not only 
relatively, but also absolutely wider at its narrowest 
part than in the adult. Not only is this of theoretic 
interest, but also, as such facts generally possess, it has 
an important utilitarian relation. A practical proof of 
this we see in the facility with which catarrhal affec- 
tions of the nose and throat in the very young travel to 
the middle ear. In the course of development the 
length of the Eustachian tube doubles, but the tym- 
panic orifice does not change its size. In short, the 
Eustachian tube changes in length, in size of lumen or 
diameter, in direction, and in the condition of its walls, 
but the changes are uneven and irregular ; so that it 
and the immediately adjacent parts cannot be said to 
be in perfect working order until a stable, in other 
words, a fairly mature, condition exists. 

At this early age the inferior turbinated, a thin, 
curled bone on the outer wall of the nasal fossa, projects 
slightly into the cavity of the nose ; and yet, strangely 
enough, there is only a very minute expansion below 
it, and none leading up behind it. This part in these 
directions shows the greatest growth. It begins to 
increase in height directly after birth, and goes on 



28 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

rather rapidly till the beginning of dentition, from 
which time until the third year it is slow. After the 
first set of teeth is cut, the growth is rapid till the 
end of the seventh year. The increase in breadth 
occurs in the last-mentioned period, which also is 
the time when the growth of the olfactory portion 
is most marked. The height does not gain predomi- 
nance till adult age. In adolescence the growth of 
the respiratory portion takes place chiefly in the 
middle meatus. In infancy the posterior border of 
the vomer is very oblique ; and with the downward 
growth of the jaw, this obliquity is much diminished 
at the age of seven or eight years. Here again we 
see a series of changes going on, the very existence 
of which means not only a change in organism, but 
also a corresponding change in functional life, and 
we are not apt to recognize how remarkable these 
changes are, simply because they are so gradual. It 
is easy enough to bring up other examples where the 
varying conditions seem more strikingly different. For 
instance, in the human foetus, at the sixth week hare- 
lip is a regular and healthy character. In later life 
it is a malformation. 

The development of the teeth is very interesting, 
and at the same time demonstrative of the plainly 
provisional and transitional character of the early years 
of life. Even as soon as the seventh month of foetal 
life, the alveolar processes contain a series of crypts, 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 29 

corresponding to the twenty milk teeth, for which 
they later on furnish lodgment. Soon the crowns of 
all these teeth are partially calcified. In addition to 
the milk teeth, the jaws contain the dental sacs of the 
permanent incisors, canines, biscupids, and first molars. 
The first upper molars lie behind the second temporary 
molars, but are not lodged in alveoli or sockets ; indeed, 
at this period of life the crypts for the second temporary 
molars have no posterior walls, and so resemble mere 
depressions rather than clearly cut pockets. In the 
lower jaw the crypts for the second temporary molars 
extend as far back as the bases of the coronoid pro- 
cesses, the very top of the vertical part of the lower 
jaw, while the first permanent molars lie underneath 
these processes. Thus, at the end of foetal life, not 
only are there no independent crypts for the first 
permanent molars, but also there is no room in the 
alveolar arches for these teeth, so that in the upper 
jaw they are placed behind its tuberosity,^ and in the 
lower one are imbedded in the base of the ascending 
ramus. Thus one sees that the development of the 
permanent teeth, except the second and third molars, 
begins early in foetal life, and continues for some 
years. The germs of the second molars appear a 
little before the end of the first year, but those of 
the third molars as late as the fifth year. As if to 

^ A rounded eminence near the angle formed by the lower and poste- 
rior surfaces of the upper jaw bone. 



30 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

emphasize the resemblance between our children and 
a lower form of life, a fourth molar is sometimes found 
developing with, or shortly after, the other three. This 
occurs generally, if not regularly, among the platyrhine 
apes. Naturally, all these teeth undergo considerable 
developmental changes before their irruption, so that 
their final is quite different from their early states. 
An interesting fact is that there is not room in the 
young jaws for the teeth, before their irruption, to 
lie in a series ; for this reason the central incisors 
overlap the lateral ones, and the canines are pushed 
up above the other teeth. The elements of the mature 
organism are stored up, and come forth httle by little 
as their corresponding functions are brought into being 
and action. This idea is of universal application, and 
holds good not only for the teeth, but also for the 
entire body. 

While all these changes are going on in the mouth, 
the tongue, in its development, is keeping an equal 
pace. Its shape and direction in part are not like 
the adult. It is greatly wanting in vertical thickness, 
and is long and low. Thus the soft palate rests like 
a curtain upon it, and when the mouth is closed, runs 
in the main backward, descending very much less 
than in the adult. This arrangement, as one can easily 
see, while helpful in the infantile method of feeding, 
would be of no use to the adult; its nature is there- 
fore special. And one might make the same statement 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 31 

concerning almost every part of the young child's 
body. It is simply another illustration of the differ- 
entiation of function, and the corresponding changes 
that must go with it. Again, at the first period of 
life one finds the uvula, the pendant, soft lobe in the 
middle of the posterior border of the soft palate, not 
merely small but really rudimentary. The follicles at 
the back of the tongue in a similar way are very often, 
instead of being merely small, entirely absent. The 
pharyngeal tonsil is likewise rudimentary ; gradually it 
appears and grows steadily, although slowly. Its rate 
of increase is so small that it contrasts strongly with 
that of some neighboring parts. 

At the earliest stages the glands in this region, a 
part of whose duty is to secrete the starch-changing 
ferment, ptyalin, are entirely inactive, and the sugar- 
forming ferment practically does not for some months 
exist. Even afterwards its potency is noticeably small. 
The character of its work is almost experimental, ten- 
tative. All through this period the evidences of un- 
equal growth are so marked that one is not surprised 
at examples of arrested growth, or even of change in 
the opposite direction. An instance of this retro- 
grade development may be found in the thymus gland, 
that curiosity of the lower part of the throat, which 
is large at birth, in fact almost as large as the left 
lung, and continues to grow until the third year ; then- 
the growth ceases, and the organ remains very much, 



32 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

if not entirely, unchanged until near puberty, when 
it begins gradually to fade away or be replaced by a 
mass of fat. In early childhood it is so relatively large 
that it lies in both thorax and neck. It extends down 
the anterior mediastinum (the central portion of the 
cavity of the thorax) lies in two long lobes on the peri- 
cardium, in the membrane surrounding the heart, and 
by its size, keeps apart the lungs and pleurae much 
more than in adults. Its development is curious on 
account of the large size at birth, the temporary growth, 
the gradual atrophy, and a certain unevenness in its 
disappearing, by which it fades first from the neck, 
then from in front of the heart, and last of all, from 
the first segment of the sternum or breast bone. A 
neighboring gland, the thyroid, upholds the general 
rule of eccentric growth by having its largest relative 
size in childhood. 

Coming to the neck one finds considerable change, 
which, as in other parts of the body, goes on steadily, 
but irregularly. Between infancy and adult life the 
larynx sinks, as shown by its relation to the vertebral 
column, for a distance which is equal to about two 
vertebrae and two intervertebral discs. Outside of the 
question of absolute size, there is a real difference in 
relative positions. The top of the epiglottis moves 
from about the level of the lower border of the atlas, 
the first vertebra of the spine, to the middle of the 
third cervical vertebra, and sometimes lower. Con- 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 33 

tinuing down the trachea, or wind-pipe, one finds the 
changes still going on, but not in the same degree ; 
for the bifurcation of the trachea in the newly born 
is generally opposite the third dorsal vertebra, but 
in the adult it is about one vertebra lower. The top 
of the sternum is placed higher in the infant than in 
the adult, and it is relatively much smaller, especially 
those of males. The only exception to this is the case 
of some females, occasionally seen, who in this respect, 
as in many others, approach closely to the infantile 
type. This resemblance which makes itself evident in 
the characteristic working and the color of the lungs, 
as well as in other viscera, is very interesting, and 
carries with it conclusions that have an important bear- 
ing in matters of general life. Joining the sternum are 
the ribs, but in shapes that vary with the passing years. 
Each small epoch shows a change from the preceding 
time that should be regarded as a step in the progress 
which leads to the full evolution of the matured person. 
In infant life the third and fourth costal cartilages pass 
horizontally inwards to the sternum, instead of, as later 
on, sloping upwards. Likewise the lower three true 
costal cartilages have a more horizontal course, and 
the angle which these cartilages form (thus making 
the boundary of the anterior wall of the thorax) is 
much greater in the young. The clavicles, or collar- 
bones, likewise are different, being horizontal in the 
very young, but inclined upward in adults. 



34 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

In all this development the proportions of the chest 
change markedly ; the transverse diameter increases 
more rapidly than the antero-posterior, since at first 
they stand in the relation to each other of one to two, 
while in the fully grown they are to each other as one 
is to three. This and other measurements in the same 
region help one to understand how the child's thorax 
should have the shape of a blunt right cone as contrary 
to the adult form of reversed cone. A fair idea of the 
change in proportions may be obtained from the fact 
that in the infant the upper edge of the sternum is 
generally on a level with the middle of the second 
dorsal vertebra ; but in spite of the general growth, 
its relative position is so much altered, that before 
development is completed, it sinks nearly to the upper 
edge of the third dorsal vertebra. All in all, one may 
say that the ribs in early life are less oblique, are 
flatter and less looped up than in adult age, while at 
the same time the intercostal muscles, until about pu- 
berty, exert very little power over them. This accounts 
for the barrel shape of the young child's chest, as well 
ns for his abdominal method of breathing, with which 
every one is familiar. Thus one sees that at various 
times there are various conditions of actual form ; this 
implies a modified method of characteristic working, 
with a consequent change in the conclusions founded 
upon normal function. 

The changes in the heart are likewise quite note- 
worthy. In the foetal stages it occupies almost all of 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 35 

the thoracic cavity, and comparatively is much larger 
than at any later period. At birth it is still relatively 
larger than in the adult, so much so, that calculations 
show the newly born heart to be eighty-nine hun- 
dredths of one per cent of the body weight, while 
the adult heart is only fifty-two hundredths of one 
per cent. Likewise are the dimensions different, for 
on account of the narrowness of the chest from side 
to side, and since the vertical extent of the heart, 
in relation to the anterior chest-wall, is almost sim- 
ilar in infants and adults, it follows that the trans- 
verse diameter is greater in the child. This brings 
the apex beat much nearer to the mammary line, or 
outside of it, which is quite different from what one 
sees in full-grown persons. As a result, the left lung, 
having a differently shaped cavity to lie in than in 
later years, is altered in form and changed in po- 
sition. At the same time, it is higher placed in 
children, but so curious are its relations to the chest 
walls at this time of life, that these are found not to be 
relatively low, but, on the contrary, are, when compared 
to fixed points in the spine, relatively high. Thus one 
can easily see that the whole condition is anomalous. 
The containing space, the relative and absolute posi- 
tions, the outline and the form of the youthful heart, 
are quite different from what they are in later life. 
Also the conus arteriosus, the rounded upward prolon- 
gation of the right ventricle, is found to lie closer to 
the chest wall than in the adult, so that from the con- 



36 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

sequent friction, an opaque white patch, called the 
" milk spot," is often found. 

The whole course of the cardiac development is irreg- 
ular, so that one can find no continuous proportional 
rate between its growth and that of the other viscera, 
such as the liver, the lungs, the spleen. This does not 
at all agree with a priori expectations, for one would 
naturally look for an equal rate and manner of change 
throughout the whole body. One can merely make a 
very general statement, such as, that the size of the 
heart in childhood is relatively greater than that of the 
lungs, or that while the heart doubles its size, the liver 
increases only one-half of its volume. But such state- 
ments, if only because they are general, are unsatis- 
factory as far as the view of a regular and progressive 
organic growth is concerned. In addition, it is easy 
to see in the early part of life the very unripe condition 
of the heart, if only from the fact that there is very 
little difference in strength or appearance between the 
right and left ventricles, while, later on, the contrary 
is the fact. And when one is familiar with the tenacity 
with which foetal and infantite conditions persist, one 
is not at all surprised by this, or by the common occur- 
rence at birth of an open foramen ovale, a foetal com- 
munication between the two auricles of the heart, a 
purely prenatal state. In fact, the farther one pro- 
gresses in the study of organic development, the more 
is one impressed with the uneven, the unstable, the 
purely provisional nature of childhood. 



CHAPTER III 

Facts in the Comparative Development of the 
Child {Continued) 

The changes in the liver are just as marked as 
those in the heart. During the second month of foetal 
life, the liver reaches a relatively enormous size ; in 
the third month, the continuation of this growth brings 
it far into the hypogastric region, and fills the greater 
part of the abdominal cavity. Through the rest of 
foetal life, as well as in infancy and childhood, this 
organ is far greater in size relatively than it later on 
comes to be. It gradually, in proportion to the rest 
of the body, becomes smaller and smaller, so that from 
constituting one-eighteenth of the body weight at birth, 
.it comes to be only one thirty-sixth in the adult. This 
in itself is sufficiently noteworthy, but looked at in the 
light of frequent eccentric variations in size, it loses 
much of its claim to a regular and normal evolution. 
All that one can say is, that there is a striking dif- 
ference between the infant and the adult. In the 
latter the liver ought not to extend beyond the free 
border of the ribs, and is distinctly confined to the 

37 



38 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

right side of the thorax, while in the former it is 
pushed down one to two centimetres below the free 
border of the ribs, and sometimes farther, and it may 
even invade the left thoracic region as far as to dis- 
place both lungs and heart to a considerable extent. 
In some cases, though without disease, it may grow 
to a remarkable extent, even so far as to fill up a fair 
portion of the abdominal space. Likewise, microscopi- 
cally, there is a tardiness in complete growth, as 
shown by the arrangement of the liver cells, that is 
remarkable. 

In foetal life there are two main sorts of these cells: 
one is a polyhedral form, much like those of the adult 
organ ; the other is a small round cell that gradually 
disappears with the lapse of time after birth. This 
is probably a young stage of the regular liver cell. 
However, it is not for some time after birth that the 
hepatic cylinders assume the adult mammalian type. 
Gradually they become longer and narrower, not so 
much by a change in the size of the cells themselves, 
as by a rearrangement of them, so that a cross-section 
of the cylinder shows the number of the cells to be 
gradually reduced to two. The gall bladder also changes 
its relations, for its fundus or base is farther from the 
anterior wall in children than in adults. The full im- 
portance of this cannot be rightly appreciated unless 
one gives it the dignity of a deviation from an adult 
normal type ; and extended observation shows widely 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 39 

different states in the whole hepatic system in differ- 
ent ages. In spite of the late arrival of maturity in 
most parts of the body, this system seems to follow 
a rule of its own. Instead of showing a slow increase 
in absolute size, and a stationary relative condition, it 
exhibits a decreased relative size, and an eccentric abso- 
lute bulk. Taking up the matter of its characteristic 
function, the secretion of the gall bladder, the so-called 
bile, one sees the workings of an individual rule. For 
this fluid appears exceedingly early, and has even been 
found as soon as the third or fourth month of foetal 
life. Besides all this, it also is comparatively more 
profuse than its adult analogue, and is thinner in con- 
sistency. Going from this noteworthy system, to a 
neighboring organ, one finds that the spleen is no ex- 
ception to the rule of eccentric development. It oc- 
cupies much the same position in both the beginning 
and the completed growth, but early in life it is so 
small as to be barely perceptible to the examining 
fingers. Indeed, it is relatively as well as actually 
smaller in children than in grown persons, and is like- 
wise very inactive. But on the whole, so little of its 
actual functions is known, that one is not justified in 
making full conclusions concerning its development. 

While, during the first period of life, the heart in 
its growth bears very little relation to the developing 
liver, it holds just as little to the lungs; for while the 
heart is increasing to one-fifth of its original size, the 



40 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

lungs take a stride that augments their growth by 
five-sevenths of the original volume. And from the 
second to the fourteenth year these organs do not 
come into any closer relationship. This connection, 
expressed graphically, seems decidedly eccentric, for 
in infancy the heart is to the lung^ as one is to three 
and a half or four. Then the relatively greater growth 
of the lungs up to the time of puberty changes this 
relation so that they stand as one to seven and three 
tenths. At this time the growth of the heart acceler- 
ates very noticeably, so that shortly after puberty has 
been established, the proportion between the two organs 
covers the range of one to five and five-tenths up to 
one to six and one-tenth. On the other hand, there 
is a very general (but only general) relation that does 
not exist in childhood, for the approximate growth of 
the lungs resembles that of the liver, while the heart 
develops in a comparatively similar way to the kid- 
neys. 

One naturally would suppose that the relation be- 
tween the heart and the arterial system is and ought 
to be a close one ; forming parts of the general circu- 
latory system, one would think them so intimately con- 
nected that changes in one would necessitate changes 
in the other. In spite of this, however, their relative 
proportions undergo material changes. In childhood, 
in relation to the body length, one finds a propor- 
tionally small heart and a wide arterial system ; but 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 4 1 

by the time of puberty these stand in the relation of 
a large heart and a narrow arterial system. During 
this time the first mentioned increases twelve times 
its original size, while the latter, in the same period, 
increases to only three times its first proportions. One 
may put the matter in a more graphic light, by stating 
that in infancy the relation of the volume of the heart 
to the width of the ascending aorta is as twenty-five 
to twenty, before puberty as one hundred and forty to 
fifty-six, and after puberty as two hundred and ninety 
to sixty-one. An associated fact is the resulting dif- 
ferences in blood pressure, for the conditions in early 
life make for a low tension, which is clearly seen in 
the behavior of the abdominal viscera ; while at and 
after puberty one finds this tension much higher. 
Naturally, such facts as these, taken in their broadest 
significance, have much more of a meaning than is 
contained in a numerical equation. Indissolubly con- 
nected with this are problems of blood supply, excre- 
tion and secretion, tissue change, and nutrition in 
general. Therefore, variations in blood pressure are of 
the greatest interest to the body at large, and all its 
functions. At the same time the anomalous condition 
of local differences in this respect may be seen ; for 
while the blood pressure in the body as a whole is 
low, that in the lungs is high. This is partly caused 
by the changing relations of the pulmonary artery and 
aorta, which in childhood bear the relation to each 



42 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

other of forty to forty-six, while at full development 
it is changed to the proportion of thirty-five and nine- 
tenths to thirty-six and two-tenths. The result is a 
heightened carbonic dioxide excretion, and a more 
rapid respiration in the earlier condition, and with this 
goes a greater nitrogen percentage. Without these 
conditions the naturally great activity of children would 
be dangerous or impossible, and they would be unable 
to fulfil one of the conditions of growth. Another in- 
stance of uneven local development is in the abdominal 
aorta and the common iliac arteries, which in the first 
few days are greater than at any time for the succeed- 
ing three months. Such differences right themselves 
slowly ; but even after they have become righted, the 
general organism requires some time before it is accus- 
tomed to the change. 

In the lungs, during the first two years of life, the 
walls of the alveoli or air spaces are thick, and their 
blood-vessels are loosely held. It is not until the 
fourth or fifth year that the proportionate adult devel- 
opment between the alveoli and the bronchi begins 
to be obtained, and the stroma or connective tissue 
frame-work has become dense and binding, restraining 
the capillaries as in adult life. Nevertheless, in spite 
of the approximation towards adult proportions, the 
neighboring parts do not immediately fall into line. 
This we see from the fact that the diaphragm, situated 
just below these structures, lies higher than in the 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 43 

adult. In infant life, the underlying loose tissue lin- 
ing the bronchial tubes gradually and slowly binds 
the mucous membrane to the fibro-muscular wall. 
From this time it keeps pace in its growth with the 
other compact tissues, until in adult life it appears as 
dense fibrous bands. Proportionally the extent of 
bronchial tubes is greater than that of the air spaces, 
and so presents quite a different picture from what 
may be seen in adult life. The connective tissue of 
the parts is likewise more abundant and tends to a 
proliferation of its cellular elements. The sub-mucous 
connective tissue of the bronchi is loose, and more 
abundantly supplied with nuclei, and its vessels are 
less loosely held. The cells lining the air spaces form 
a continuous layer. The alveoli are small, their epi- 
thelium proliferates abundantly, and the absorbents 
accomplish their work slowly, the blood-vessels play- 
ing a more important role than later on. One may 
judge of the gradual nature of the development in 
the lungs from the fact that not until seven years 
of age, and probably later, do they reach their full 
forward expansion. Even from this rapid and simple 
account, one must plainly see how broadly different 
in the matters mentioned the child is from the adult. 
The difference, as has been said before, is not merely 
one of size, but also one of form, of structure, of physi- 
cal and chemical importance. 

Some interesting conditions are found in the kid- 



44 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

neys. In prenatal life they very soon become lobu- 
lated, and continue so until a fairly long period after 
birth, when these lobules slowly disappear and are 
replaced by the so-called pyramids of Malpighi. The 
kidneys of the infant are relatively larger than those 
of adults, and are situated lower down. This is the 
more noteworthy from the fact that the lumbar part 
of the spine, where they are placed, is relatively small. 
The resulting disproportion between the parts is worthy 
of active attention. In the newly born child the two 
kidneys are equal in volume, or at all events, any 
difference between them is very small. During the 
first year this begins to change in favor of the left, 
and so continues to increase. At the same time this 
left kidney in childhood is higher placed than its fel- 
low, and does not sink to its level until about seven 
or eight years of age. A curious fact is that uric acid 
infarctions, which are purely prenatal when found in 
healthy conditions, commonly exist for some time after 
birth. Later on in life these same infarctions would 
occur only in a state of pathological degeneration. 
The blood supply in these organs is noteworthy, for 
here some remarkable conditions are to be found, 
which weightily influence the health of the child's 
mind and body. 

One would suppose that the growth of an organ 
would profess equally with its blood supply, for 
between them there must exist a relation almost as 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 45 

strenuous as that of supply and demand. But in the 
kidneys this is found not to hold good. In fact, it has 
been ascertained that the transverse section of the 
former increases more rapidly than the volume and 
weight of the latter, and the arterial tension, which 
depends upon the ease with which the blood is able 
to flow through the fine capillaries, is thereby in- 
fluenced. For this reason one finds that children are 
more liable to renal congestion and other inflamjmatory 
conditions of the kidneys than adults, and this fact is 
supported by experimental researches, which prove that 
a greater proportional amount of water can in a given 
time be forced through the adult than the immature 
organs. In a somewhat similar degree the femoral 
artery increases, while, on the other hand, the common 
carotid, which in so large a measure nourishes the upper 
extremity, follows an opposite rule, having relatively an 
exceedingly small and slow growth. Here again purely 
experimental facts have the closest connection with 
questions of practical education and development. A 
very striking instance of irregularity in development 
is found in the suprarenal capsules ; for they at birth 
are as large as, if not larger than, the same structures 
in adults. Thus time and time again the evidences of 
uneven development are multiplied, and what is true of 
the body at one time, may at another be totally false. 
When one considers that the average gro ?th in body 
weio^ht between birth and adult life is about nineteen 



46 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

times the original quantity, this stationary condition 
of the suprarenal capsules is noteworthy. 

The stomach in its development shows some marked 
differences ; its growth is very rapid at first, but after- 
wards it progresses more slowly. In infancy it is more 
tubular, its position is more vertical than in the adult, 
and the oesophageal sphincter is less developed. So 
real is this that the act of vomiting in young children is 
not attended with nearly the same amount of effort and 
retching as in older persons. Indeed, this act occurs 
with all the ease with which the contents of a bag are 
squeezed out. This facility is aided by the slightly 
higher relative position which the organ holds. In 
short, the evidences of immaturity, both in the gross 
and the microscopic arrangements, persist for a long 
time. Even the ducts which are so necessary to its 
work do not attain their permanent state until full 
adult life, for both before and at birth, these ducts 
average about seven glands to each one, but after this, 
owing to the continued division of the ducts, the glands 
are progressively divided up. This goes on until at 
adult life only three glands go to a duct. Besides weak 
peristaltic powers, the functional secretions of the 
stomach are of a special sort in infants. These secre- 
tions in the adult seem to possess the power of dissolv- 
ing cell envelopes, thus setting free the contained 
proteid matter. The infant is unable to do this, for 
its digestive powers appear to have little or no corrosive 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 47 

faculty. On the other hand, its ability to digest casein 
is proportionally far in advance of that of the adult, and 
this is doubtless due to the fact that the former has a 
larger proportion of the hydrolitic ferment, called renin, 
than the latter. Thus the infant has its natural food in 
milk, which holds a large proportion of casein and lacks 
all cell envelopes. In the same way we find that the 
pancreatic secretions are likewise variable, for the tryp- 
sin and steapsin are barely active, and the amylopsin 
totally inert in infants. The digestive powers in in- 
fancy and adult life differ both in degree and kind ; so 
that if we had no other fact than this, we should be 
justified in building up a broad theory of differential 
functions and development. 

During infancy and childhood the intestines grow 
irregularly, by fits and starts, as it were ; their position 
varies from that of the adult, and also they are less 
fixed. The constriction which may be found in adults 
at the junction of the first and second parts is com- 
monly absent in infants ; the transverse colon is rela- 
tively low. In the large intestine, up to four months of 
age, the length remains quite stationary. After that 
time a remarkable change takes place ; the upper por- 
tion begins to grow at the expense of the sigmoid 
flexure, which at birth is nearly one-half of the whole 
large intestine, while at four months it already assumes 
its permanent proportions. The ascending colon in 
children, owing to the higher position of the caecum 



48 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

and the greater size of the liver, is very short. This 
part of the colon has more often a mesentery ^ than in 
the adult, and also a relatively larger portion above the 
caecum is invested with peritonaeum, so that the gut is 
here absolutely free. The caecum alone changes its 
position and relations so much in the course of develop- 
ment that the transitional nature of childhood is clearly 
made apparent. 

About the fourth month of foetal life, this part of 
the intestines is situated near the median plane, and at 
a higher level than in the adult. As it grows, it passes 
to the right side, in front of the second part of the 
duodenum, and then descends into the iliac fossa. 
Even then it is apt to be placed high up, near the 
anterior superior spine of the ilium. A corresponding 
position is held by the sigmoid flexure, hardly any of 
which is found in the pelvis until this bony basin is 
more widely spread out by later development. Brun- 
ner's and Lieberkiihn's glands, which are necessary 
factors in the final activity of the bowel, are only par- 
tially developed, and the solitary and agminated glands 
are rich in lymphoid tissue. In fact, the whole lym- 
phatic system is remarkably well developed in early 
life, and the amount of lymph in circulation is greater 
than it later is. 

The rectum, as one would expect, shows conditions 

^ A fold of the peritonaeum by which a portion of the intestinal canal is 
attached loosely to the posterior wall of the abdomen. 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 49 

somewhat similar to the main part of the large intestine. 
In the adult it is situated entirely within the true pelvis, 
and presents three curves : one in the lateral, and two 
in the anterior-posterior direction. On the other hand, 
in the infant a large part of the rectum is in the abdom- 
inal, rather than the pelvic, cavity ; it is nearly straight, 
and occupies a more or less vertical position. Its 
attachments do not extend so high in children, and the 
reflection of the peritonaeum is placed lower down. 
Consideration of these facts will explain the frequency 
of certain infantile complaints, such as the easy pro- 
lapse of the rectum, chronic constipation, and general 
digestive derangements. 

The bladder, also, instead of being in the pelvis, is, 
in early life, almost entirely an abdominal organ. The 
uterus grows but little from its foetal condition until 
puberty. Before this time the peritonaeum is reflected 
quite over the posterior surface of the bladder, the 
anterior surface of which is always uncovered by this 
membrane in children. In this detail the difference 
between children and adults, while not great, is un- 
mistakable and constant. In the rectum also the 
peritonaeum is reflected over the upper portion, and 
is relatively to the adult condition lower down. The 
prostate gland, like the uterus, is very small in early 
life, weighing at seven years only thirty grains. At 
eighteen or twenty years it increases to two hundred 
and fifty grains. The urethra follows in the same plan 



50 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

of being comparatively small until puberty, when its 
growth takes a sudden bound, until the adult conditions 
are attained. Naturally enough, the anatomy of the 
perinaeum varies with that of the neighboring impor- 
tant parts, such as the rectum and the bladder, and 
with the general looseness of the fascicB, the sheets of 
connective tissue that later on have a dense consistency, 
at the outlet of the pelvis. The pelvis of course in- 
creases and grows very materially, so much so, that 
the so-called pelvic organs, which during childhood have 
been more or less in the abdomen, are gradually al- 
lowed to sink and find their proper places. The change 
is naturally seen more plainly in the female, where the 
broad pubic arch and the wide transverse diameter (ex- 
ceeding the antero-posterior in the adult) are character- 
istic of the developed state. While one looks at late 
changes in the genito-urinary system as right and desir- 
able, nevertheless, one should not lose sight of the fact 
that such changes are merely stages in the great evo- 
lution of men and women from "Fleisch-Piippe7i." 

The spine at birth is quite different from what it 
finally grows to be. It is broader and shorter, but at 
the same time the spinal cord descends lower than in 
the adult for about the space of one vertebra. The 
whole structure is very light and flexible, so that it 
may easily be pulled and twisted one way and another. 
It is without its characteristic cervical and lumbar 
curves, which come into being only after the pull and 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 5 1 

strain of gravity and muscular contraction are set in 
motion by added maturity and increasing exercise. 
The various parts bear a changed proportion to each 
other, for the cervical (which is proportionately longer 
in children than in adults) and lumbar regions are 
equal in length, while in the man they bear the relation 
of two to three. In foetal life the proportion of the 
movable part of the spine in the neck is greater than 
that in the loins, which is quite the opposite of what 
one finds in the adult, since in the latter the neck is 
the less, being about one-fifth, while the loins are a 
little less than one-third of the column. In later child- 
hood the lumbar part continues steadily to grow more 
rapidly than the cervical, until a short time after 
puberty, when the adult proportions begin to be seen. 
In childhood a thin layer of cartilage covers the upper 
and lower surfaces of the vertebrae, which, however, is 
so small as to be of little use as a cushion, especially 
as the rest of the bone is not as yet completely solidi- 
fied. The consolidation of the bodies does not begin 
till about the fourth year, and goes on till after the 
eighth ; but the epiphyseal or end plates do not form 
till about the seventeenth year. The coccyx, the end 
of the spinal column, is particularly late in its devel- 
opment, for it does not begin to ossify until puberty, 
and then slowly progresses ; as a result, the third 
piece is not hard until after the sixteenth year, and 
the fourth piece until after the eighteenth. 



52 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

Some of the most interesting changes may be seen 
in the nervous system ; by these changes man develops 
from a low to a very high stage of intellectual com- 
plexity. But the development is obtained only through 
the course of a long and complex evolution, that extends 
over the whole period between conception and the full, 
active maturity of adult life. Some time since, Goltz 
made experiments on a dog whose cerebrum had been 
removed. He demonstrated the capacity of the animal 
to accomplish many of its bodily functions and instincts 
without the exercise of the higher mental faculties. 
Its ability to bark, to take food, to respond to salient 
stimuli, was remarkable. Also, Longet amputated the 
cerebral hemispheres of a pigeon, and kept the bird 
alive for eighteen days. This bird showed ability to 
blink the eyes and contract the iris at the approach of 
a light, as well as to follow the light when it was moved 
about ; likewise it could swallow food, as well as per- 
form the usual excretory functions. In short, these 
two animals, in their maimed conditions, were not much 
removed, so far as fulfilling the ordinary needs of phys- 
ical life is concerned, from the recently born infant. 
In addition, an examination of the young brain would 
lead one to suppose this condition, and continued ex- 
amination demonstrates the gradual development from 
a primitive condition of simplicity into a state of normal 
responsible intelligence. 

In children the brain is large, but chemically it con- 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 53 

tains a large percentage of water ; it is therefore softer 
than in adult life, and the specific gravity is lower. Its 
gray and white substances differ very little from each 
other in color and composition. And not only in the 
brain, but also in almost all the tissues, there is a 
marked difference in cell formation between the young 
and the old. The difference is not merely one of size 
and quantity of cells ; rather is it a great distinction in 
the elaboration of cell matter, so that the cells of the 
infant are nothing more than variants of the cells of 
the adult. In the former one finds a relatively large 
nucleus and a small portion of cytoplasm (cell-contents), 
while in the latter the opposite is the fact. Hodge ^ 
not long ago summarized this as well as the differences 
in pigmentation, in so clear a manner that the least 
attention will convince one of the widely separated 
structures of the two organisms. 

It seems to be generally agreed that the number and 
extent of the convolutions of the brain bear some close 
relation to the intellectual power of the subject. This 
is interesting, in view of the conditions which one finds 
in early life. The morphological development is very 
slow — so slow, in fact, that some important cells, such 
as Purkinje's cells in the cerebellum, have no properly 







Nucleoli 








Vol. of 


OBSERVABLE IN 


Pigment 


Pigment 




Nucleus 


Nuclei 


MUCH 


UTTLK 


At birth . . 


. . 100 0/0 


in 53% 


. . . 


. . . 


In old age . . 


• • 54-2 


in 5% 


67% 


33% 



54 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

characteristic appearance until after birth. Even then 
the brain has not in its essential parts really become- 
differentiated. According to the discoveries of Bin- 
swanger, the fully formed ganglion cells are not present 
in the cerebrum for at least two months, and it takes 
until after this time, according to the authority of 
Sernoff, for the cerebral convolutions to develop. The 
mere fact that these elements begin to grow is very far 
from the idea that they are as yet of any use ; many 
changes must take place before that occurs. Some of 
these changes may be seen by the alteration in the 
position of well-known landmarks ; thus the Sylvian 
fissure, instead of being at the level of the anterior 
part of the squamous suture between the temporal and 
parietal bones (as one finds it in adults) is one-half inch 
above it. These parts, although their development is 
more or less continuous, do not attain their permanent 
relations until the child is nine years old. An equally 
important change takes place in the fissure of Rolando, 
which gradually alters both position and direction. 
These are cited merely as instances ; the rule which 
they exemplify holds good for the rest of the cerebral 
structures. For seven or eight years the development 
in size and complexity is rapid. From that time until 
after puberty it is slower and then progressively gets 
weaker and smaller until full maturity. 

The microscopic changes are just as noteworthy as 
the gross. We see this when we look at the foetal 



B 




M /<<& 




Spinal ganglion ceUs of a still-boi-n 
male child. N, nuclei. 



Spinal ganglion cells of a man dying 
at ninety-two years. 



X 250 diameters. 





Nervo cell from the antennary ganglion 
of a honey bee, just emerged in the 
perfect form. 



Nerve cells from same region (as in C) 
of an aged honey bee. 



Showing changes in nerve cells due to age. 

In the old man the cells are not large, the cytoplasm is pigmented, the nucleus Is 
small, and the nucleolus much shrunlien or absent. (Hodge.) 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 55 

state, where all the cells are isolated from each other. 
These cells, in order to be of real use, must grow and 
bud and throw out branches, which later on come to 
interlace, like the leaves in a forest. But in the early 
conditions, either they have no branches, or, if they 
have, these branches have no connections in common, 
by which they are able to transmit impulses. More- 
over, there is a fierce struggle for nourishment, if not 
for existence, among the young nerve elements, so that 
their initial presence does not necessarily mean their 
continued growth. Mistakes in nutrition, adverse cir- 
cumstances of any kind, tend to make their struggle 
for existence harder than it naturally would be, and 
although attending circumstances be favorable, never- 
theless the struggle must be hard. Even where they 
remain intact, considerable time must pass before they 
are able in an efficient way to carry out their peculiar 
functions. Thus, for instance, in the earliest time of a 
person's life, the conducting fibres between the unde- 
veloped brain and the pyramidal fibres of the spinal 
cord perform no functions. As these fibres are the 
pathway by which impulses are carried from the brain 
to the body, it necessarily follows that the impulses are 
not transmitted, just in the same way and as surely 
that the impulses themselves cannot immediately be 
produced, for the simple reason that the brain does not 
as yet possess all of its constituent elements in a suffi- 
ciently mature condition to elaborate the characteristic 



56 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

functions. The inevitable conclusion is that most of a 
child's earliest and many of his later movements are 
purely reflex, not necessarily dependent upon the higher 
centres. For intelligent movements are merely the 
palpable working out of nerve tissue which is suffi- 
ciently elaborated for its peculiar functions. Fully to 
carry out these functions, several requirements must be 
met. One of these is the medullation of the nerve 
fibres. At birth the central nervous system, as well as 
the peripheral system, is almost entirely unmedullated. 
Stated otherwise, they are in an imperfect and unde- 
veloped state. And for this reason Flechsig has 
pointed out distinctly that the newly born brain is 
"unripe." 

As the child grows, each distinct advance is marked 
by a clear increase in the medullation. The parts, 
which are first able to perform their functions, first 
receive their myelin sheaths, so that a fairly good idea 
of the developing abilities of an animal may be obtained 
by ascertaining the extent to which medullation has 
progressed. As a matter of experience, we know that 
the purely somatic functions and reflexes exist before 
the higher mental qualities come into being; just as, 
analogously, we know that the secretion of the gall 
precedes that of the gastric juices, which help to 
break up solid food. Therefore, we find the fibres of 
the spinal cord, medtdla oblongata, pons varolii, and 
corpora qnadrigeini?ia — all mainly somatic — to be 



B 















IV 

V 

Ftfitus of 2S weeks. 



o 
Foetus of 32 weeks. 









°1 <^ 

Child at birth. 



Ill 



IV 



Man at maturity. 



Sketch showing the increase in the number and size of the cell-bodies in the imma- 
ture and mature human cortex. (After Vignal.) 

I-V, layers of the cortex according to the enumeration of Meynert, 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 57 

medullated long before the higher centres in the 
cerebrum. Likewise one can easily see the reason of 
all the unrestrained and objectless movements of in- 
fancy, from the fact that the inhibitory centres become 
"ripe" much later than the peripheral nerves. Thus 
the nerves whose action brings on movement are set 
in motion before those that restrain and control move- 
ment. The result must be an unmeasured muscular 
exercise that is characteristic of a low form of develop- 
ment. And not only the nerve fibres, but also the 
main and secondary branches of the nerve cells, must 
be medullated. This full growth occurs still later and 
very gradually. One can see at increasing ages the 
slow advance of this process, as the cells throw out 
their branches from year to year, at first in small 
separated groups, which grow and spread until they 
finally merge together between puberty and adult life ; 
but it must be remembered that the process is slow, 
and for a long time confined to small localized areas. 
Likewise one must remember that even when the 
branching out is in process of formation, the results 
of its activity are tentative and unreliable. 

One obtains a most convincing experience in study- 
ing the development and growth of the nerve branches. 
The nerve cells exist at first without them, and acquire 
them very slowly and gradually. First a process of 
cytoplasm pushes its way out more gently and tenderly 
than a wonderfully fine shoot grows out from a root 



58 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

through the surrounding soil. This process is called 
the neuron. 1 After a sufficient period of growth it 
begins to divide and subdivide, so that finally a mass 
of the finest shoots spreads out on both sides and in 
front. These are called dendrons. Now the capacity 
both to receive and deliver impulses is a function of 
these branches and their end pieces ; and also they 
must be still further differentiated so that they may 
determine which shall conduct the efferent and which 
the afferent impulses. Thus the shape of the cell and 
the number of its branches have a most important 
bearing upon the nervous activity of the person. 

In all probability the cell bodies make up less than 
ten per cent of the entire weight of the central system, 
so that the remaining ninety per cent must be made up 
of neurons, dendrons, and other similar tissues. In the 
vertebrate series the cortical cells tend to possess more 
branches in direct ratio to the high position which the 
animal occupies in the zoological series. The higher 
the animal and the more complicated and fruitful its 

* It is obviously impossible to give a full history of cytogenesis. If one 
wanted to do this, one would have to delve into the complexities of den- 
drones and dendrites, of neurons and neurones, of axones, collaterals, 
telodendrites, of arkyochrome, stichochrome and gryochrome cells. Such 
reading is plainly for the scientist who has a fair measure of precedent 
knowledge in this held. The best that one can do is to refer the reader 
who may be anxious for further knowledge to the works of such men 
as His, von Leubossek, Retzius, Ramon y Cajal, Kolliker, and others 
like them who have done such wondrous things in this fascinating 
department of research. 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 59 

physiological economy, the greater the number of these 
branches must be, and Cajal's figures show positively 
that each cell passes from a condition in which it has 
no or few off-shoots into one final state, in which it 
has an exceedingly great many ; and that this increase 
grows steadily, but with progressively greater slowness, 
up to the time of maturity. In addition, all the medul- 
lated neurons are in their early history unmedullated, 
the process being completed with great deliberation. 
Thus, even if the medullation in the peripheral system 
was for the main part completed in the first seven 
years, nevertheless several more years would be needed 
before the process had spread sufficiently far in all 
directions to put the child on a plane approaching that 
of the adult. Especially does this seem true when one 
realizes that the main advances in the first few years 
are in the motor and sensory fibres, and that these 
fibres make up only one-third of the whole area of the 
cortical surface, the other two-thirds being reserved for 
higher uses. 

Still another important factor in nerve development 
is the presence of chromatin granules. Unfortunately, 
our knowledge of these bodies is as yet limited, but 
nevertheless we are certain that they are closely 
associated with the functional activity of nerve struc- 
tures, and that they are absent in the very young. 
As the animal increases in power and functional 
activity, these granules grow more and more evident. 



6o THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

Thus, when we see a puppy sprawling about, unable 
to walk after the fashion of his kind, and unable to 
see, we must assign the cause not necessarily to physi- 
cal weakness and stupidity, but simply to the fact that 
the animal's nerves are not yet medullated, that as 
yet he does not possess the sufficient amount of chro- 
matin granules, that as a whole his nervous system 
is "unripe." The same idea is true of children. They 
are different from adults not merely in size, stature, 
strength, and experience, but much more in the ineffi- 
cient development of their various organs. Their 
helpless condition is not necessarily due to lack of 
strength, but rather to inability to use the strength 
which they possess. One should call to mind the 
well-known experiments of Dr. L. Robinson on sixty 
new-born infants. He proved that they were able to 
hang by their hands from a stick for thirty seconds. 
This is almost as remarkable a performance as walk- 
ing, and involves a striking amount of strength. The 
reason why this strength can be used is, that the 
clutching and grasping faculty is one of the first 
somatic functions to be developed, that the nerve 
cells controlling this function are subject to an ex- 
ceedingly early elaboration. The children, as a whole, 
are " unripe " ; they stand in the place of the chrys- 
alis, of the immature animal that is so far different 
from its fully grown model as almost to merit the 
name of a different creature. 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 6 1 

Thus, for instance, as soon as one looks at a baby's 
brain, one is able immediately to see why he cannot 
walk like an adult, for outside of the microscopical 
changes, the cerebellum, where the function of coordi- 
nation is seated, is relatively much smaller than the 
cerebrum. In addition, one sometimes finds primitive 
conditions in this part, which show that development 
must bridge over a great chasm before useful func- 
tions exist in a normal state. Thus one may mention 
the median occipital fossa noted by Lombroso in con- 
nection with the hypertrophy of the vermis of the 
cerebellum, which sometimes occurs in the very young 
human being. This condition regularly occurs in the 
lower apes. For similar reasons one would conclude 
that useful and reliable sight comes to the child more 
slowly than is commonly believed. Just as in walk- 
ing the loose and unregulated movements of the legs 
become rarer and rarer, so the ability to see clearly, 
to understand the meaning of distance, to grasp the 
idea of the third dimension in space, has a very grad- 
ual, even slower growth. In the real sense of the 
term, the child for some weeks does not see at all, 
and for a long time he sees very imperfectly. His 
first distinctions are merely those of light and dark- 
ness, then the warm colors, and finally the colder 
ones, with their various shades. Professor Preyer, 
wishing to get positive information on this subject, 
trained his young child by daily practice in discrimi- 



62 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

nating between the various colors. When the child 
was almost two and one-half years old, although he 
could pick out, with fairly good accuracy, such strongly 
marked hues as red, yellow, and black, nevertheless he 
seemed absolutely unable to distinguish green, blue, 
gray, and orange. And even in the fourth year he 
failed to recognize the difference between blue and 
gray. This case is all the more impressive, because 
the child had a special training, as well as environ- 
ments, which naturally would be productive of good 
results. But one cannot easily abolish the limitations 
of nature. 

In these chapters I have been forced, on account of 
the wealth of material, to use many isolated facts. A 
complete account of all the slow changes that make 
the child so widely different from the adult would in- 
clude almost every item of physical and mental growth. 
There was a real necessity of picking out only enough 
to form the outlines of a picture. But the picture 
should be so plain that any one and every one may know 
the meaning of it. This meaning includes the clear 
facts that an infant's development is not a rigidly im- 
movable process, that it progresses slowly and irregu- 
larly, and that during its course the child is in so 
unstable a condition that no strain should be put upon 
his faculties. It is easy to see that an organism which 
is in a condition of unstable equilibrium may, by seem- 
ingly slight causes, be injuriously affected. Where the 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 63 

organic elements are so delicate, where their relations 
are so changing, where so long a time is necessary 
to insure their normal and healthful completion of 
growth, it must be clearly evident that the artificial 
conditions which constitute their environment must 
play an important part in deciding the value of their 
ultimate activity. Such things, taken together, go to 
form a child's nutrition, for this term cannot rightly 
be used to designate only his food. 

On the contrary, every fact which affects metabolism, 
tissue-change, must be included in this term, nutrition. 
The conservation of energy in motor impulses, sense 
impressions, physical exercises, comes within the boun- 
daries of this category. The child whose sense of 
sight is wrongly or too early taxed, whose power of 
food-assimilation is abused, whose order of mental de- 
velopment is ignored, is suffering from poor nutrition. 
This child who prematurely participates in experiences 
and ways of living, who is allowed to wander outside 
of the limits that a conservative idea of growth im- 
poses, who becomes subject to conditions that only the 
strength of maturity can withstand, is thus subjected 
to adverse conditions that must surely leave their mark 
upon his later organic form. Such a child is suffering 
from a vicious nutrition. The child who assumes re- 
sponsibilities beyond his years, who undergoes the 
wear and tear attending the course of a too rapid 
development, who lacks the benefits of a wise restraint 



64 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

and discipline, is bound to show the effects in a partial 
and one-sided development that bars him out from the 
full beauty of finished maturity. Such a child suffers 
from the effects of a misdirected and vicious nutrition. 
We have the word of M. de Lavelaye, a wise man in 
his generation, that success in life does not mean 
proficiency in money-making, in professional skill, or 
in any form of special activity. Rather it means that 
a man should represent the best civilization of his time, 
that he should stand for intellectual strength, moral 
strength, that he should be strong in his affections, 
amenable to proper authority, mindful of his natural 
and artificial limitations. Such a man would represent 
the finest flower of human life ; his presence would 
be an inspiration and an example to all who come 
in contact with him. At the same time, the fact of 
his existence would mean that every part of him 
stands in absolute harmony with his whole organiza- 
tion. There could be no one-sidedness, no atrophy 
of one function associated with hypertrophy of another. 
Such a man would represent the workings of a system 
which nourished in the proper order and manner every 
group of cells in his body. And when his nutrition 
was so devised as to bring him into the best working 
with his environment, he would naturally attain the 
excellence which we now look upon as an ideal. The 
more one regards the facts in these two chapters as 
truths of fair observation, the more one is forced to 



FACTS IN COMPARATIVE DEVELOPMENT 65 

feel that the ultimate condition of a child is dependent 
upon a law which embraces these truths along with 
many others in a generalization which must cover 
the whole range of human experience. Such a gen- 
eralization, stated not too strongly, would convey the 
impression that a child is the creature of surrounding, 
modifying influences, that he is, to a large extent, what 
his environment makes him, that in the first place, 
the responsibility for his development rests heavily 
upon those who provide the environment. 

It is always a good thing to know where one stands, 
to know the effects of one's acts, to know what measure 
of praise or blame one deserves. Thus, in so far as the 
mind is free, can one mark out a path along which to 
walk. There can be no doubt of the truth of this ; and 
whatever truth it has applies strongly to one's relations 
to children. It must ever be the part of wisdom to 
recognize how far their true development is indepen- 
dent, and how far it is bound up with a knowledge of 
their evolution from exceedingly low forms, by means 
of carefully modifying circumstances, into forms of won- 
derful complexity and fineness. 



CHAPTER IV 

Comparative Importance of Heredity and 
1'Invironment 

"Like to like" is a common expression; "like from 
like " is as commonly understood. The fact of related 
forms and functions usually implies a connection and 
similarity in origin and development. One knows from 
ordinary experience that roses produce roses, that 
horses bear horses ; what is more, one expects a still 
further distinction ; an American Beauty rose never 
grows from a Mar<5chal Neil, nor does an Hambletonian 
mare give birth to a Percheron. In addition still, suc- 
cessful attempts have been made by growers of plants 
and breeders of animals to control to some extent the 
character of the respective progeny. Following such 
efforts, some of the best results of intelligent applica- 
tion have been accomplished. By crossing roses of a 
particular size and color, the size and color of the off- 
spring plant — as everyone knows — may be approxi- 
mately determined. And so certainly is speed in the 
parent horses bound to develop speed in the foals that 
the get of prize-winners merely upon the form of the 
parents conimaml a high price. 

66 



HEkEDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 6/ 

Most people, reasoning from such ordinary facts as 
these, believe that children in their nature follow that 
of the parents, and they expect a brilliant father to 
have a brilliant son, just as they look for a moral- 
minded child from moral-minded parents. So confident 
is their reliance upon this rule that an exception to it 
provokes curious and wondering comment. A man 
whose parents are criminal is regularly looked upon 
with suspicion, just as a criminal whose parents are 
respectable is regarded with even more disfavor, if that 
is possible, than is his fellow-sinner, whose heredity is 
bad. Most persons go even farther than this : they 
expect a man's occupation or the acquired character- 
istics which his occupation entails, to influence his 
child's character. Facility in certain trades and apti- 
tude for various professions have often enough been 
traced to the fact that one or both parents had acquired 
an experience in these vocations. Scars and mutilations 
in the parent commonly serve as good cause in many 
people's mind for the accidental occurrence of approxi- 
mately similar markings in their offspring. If a clergy- 
man has a wild son, the friends and relatives feel that 
the boy is a lapse from the expected order of things, 
a sort of freak of nature. Nevertheless, Galton, an 
authority in questions of heredity, believes that clear 
reasoning will show grounds for expecting such 
"freaks." 

Extended observation will show that such cases of 



68 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

resemblance are largely coincidences. The more con- 
sideration one gives to the matter, the more one finds 
exception to the common rule of expecting a man's 
children to be an imitation of him, or even of expecting 
the child to represent the sum of father and mother. 
In the simplest organisms, such as protozoa, on account 
of the simplicity of the elements involved, this would 
be the fact ; for here one would have creatures practi- 
cally alike and homogeneous, which have been created 
by the cutting in two of the parent. There would be 
no question of artificial circumstances, of artificial ad- 
justment to environment, of acquired tendencies to be 
considered. In fact, in all the lower forms of life, the 
question of reproduction is less complex than in the 
higher. Thus one might divide a hydra into small 
pieces, and from any one of them a new creature could 
grow. Or, by planting a slip of a begonia in the 
ground a whole plant might be started. But as soon 
as one has to do with the higher order of animals, dif- 
ferent conditions come into play ; there is an added 
complexity of development and function, and with this 
added complexity come countless elements to make the 
equation so much harder to solve. Descent is no 
longer a matter of simple fission of cells, a plain repro- 
duction of a homogeneous material. Rather it is an 
elaboration of many different sorts of tissue, which have 
the possibility of assuming the most intricate functions. 
Thus in man one has the most complex being, who is 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 69 

affected in his physical and mental constitution by 
countless ancestors, each one of whom has contributed 
a share to make up the present whole. By the very fact 
of his complexity of constitution and functional arrange- 
ment, he makes up a problem that is quite different from 
anything that lower animals offer us. In reasoning 
about him, one is very apt to confuse purely personal 
and acquired traits, that are the result of circumstance, 
with facts of rigid inheritance that circumstances can 
never alter. 

There is, besides, one important factor in his descent 
that is almost entirely absent from the descent of all 
other creatures. In them there is practically a clear 
line of ancestors, most of which lived in the same 
places, in the same conditions, under the same influ- 
ences. The changes that have been traced in them are 
slow, gradual, and directly attributable to adaptation to 
environment. The Indian tiger has had no opportunity 
to be crossed with the American jaguar, nor does the 
horse breed with the cow. Each kind of animal follows 
a general system of in-breeding that keeps its strain 
fairly pure and simple. Cases of commingling and inter- 
breeding from widely separated sources are, therefore, 
not common. And thus the main characteristics have 
been preserved with a remarkable degree of purity. In 
man the opposite is the case. For countless ages, as 
the result of victory and conquest, of migration, of 
travel, of curiosity, of intelligence, of many-sided ne- 



70 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

cessity, he has been moving about in habitable lands, 
making all sorts of social, domestic and political con- 
nections, both transient and permanent, with the result 
that his race is a most strikingly mixed one, mixed be- 
yond hope of picking out — among civilized peoples at 
least — a really pure strain. There is no class of ani- 
mals, even in the remotest wood or jungle, that is so 
utterly tangled in its heredity. As instances of this 
process of mixing, one may cite some of the very inter- 
esting studies in anthropology, recently made, which 
have picked out the trails of wandering peoples, and 
their effects upon the characters of the people of the 
traversed localities. The deeper the study is pursued, 
the less can one believe in a " pure strain." The prog- 
ress of the Teutons alone is most instructive. They 
had certain characteristics, among which were tall stat- 
ure and fair complexion. All over the map, wherever 
these "greasy seven-foot giants" have gone, they have 
stamped these characteristics upon the population, so 
that centuries have not wiped them out. 

Again, in the Armorican Peninsula there is a 
strongly marked contrast between the Bretons and 
the other French peasants, who live side by side. 
When the coast people are compared to those of the 
interior, the differences come out with great strength. 
This is hard to understand until one remembers that in 
ancient times this coast was invaded and ravaged most 
fiercely by the Saxon pirates. So thoroughly did these 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT /I 

Northern barbarians leave their impress upon the in- 
habitants, that even to this day the Teutonic com- 
plexion of eyes and hair, and the shape of head, in 
other v^ords, purely somatic traits, still persist. In 
other places, types persist for thousands of years, in 
spite of mixing, in spite of conquest ; so that in the 
confusion of ages, old-time traits are continually crop- 
ping up. At Dordogne, in the Limousin hills of 
France, a distinct type of man occurs, that is said to 
be a remnant of the very ancient Cro-Magnon race. It 
existed in prehistoric times, in ages when the inhabi- 
tants of France w^ere below the level of the American 
Aborigines at the landing of Columbus, at a time when 
the climate was so different that the reindeer roamed 
over what is now the Valley of the Rhone. In spite 
of time, conquest and occupation of the country by 
foreign tribes, by the Romans, the Saracens, the Teu- 
tons, this race has in part persisted. Like outcropping 
strata in the earth, their characteristics have from time 
to time, and in various places, appeared again and 
again. But always, one should remember, have these 
characteristics belonged to the category called somatic. 
The acquired traits are entirely different, and are not 
in the same way transmitted. What combinations 
have resulted from all these admixtures, surely no 
one can tell. 

One may find another example in the Jews. Of all 
peoples, they, doubtless, are the most purely bred. 



72 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

They had a distinct ethnic existence for centuries 
before the ancestors of their modern neighbors were 
redeemed from barbarism. They have retained for 
thousands of years certain well-known features of face, 
form and mind, that give them an undoubted race- 
individuality. But, nevertheless, they bear the marks 
of their wanderings. They are a sort of living record 
of an organic process which has come down from the 
remote past to the present. Every people among 
whom they lived have left their mark upon them. The 
branches that lived in Russia show characteristics that 
are purely Slav ; in others there are traits that are 
clearly Iberian ; in others one can see signs that point 
with an unwavering finger to a sojourn among Teu- 
tons ; mixed with the pure Semitic traits are features 
which point with an unerring directness to a widely 
foreign element. These traits are heritages from all 
past time, modern as well as ancient. Taken together, 
they make a curious mixture. But the one exists as 
well as the other; for to-day, in the streets of New 
York, one may easily recognize skulls and lineaments 
that are as clearly ancient Assyrian as one can possibly 
hope to find. 

In the same way that bodily characteristics reappear 
for generations and centuries from a far distant source, 
so traits of mind and character are similarly cropping 
out. Such things are beyond direct control ; they are 
the result of a complicated miscegenesis, and their 



■ HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 73 

existence does not in any way depend upon the efforts 
or the acquired characteristics of parents. They come 
from very many origins, and their occurrence, as 
well as their action upon one another, no man can 
predicate. Moreover, whenever a union between mem- 
bers of different races occurs, an indefinite number of 
ancestral traits ajopear, which seem to be set free by 
the very fact of cross-breeding. This effect of crossing 
is well known, and is illustrated by such classical 
examples as Darwin furnished : the mule, the offspring 
of the horse and the ass, frequently is born with stripes 
upon the legs. This feature is not seen in either 
parent, but is traced back to a remote ancestor of 
both, which was a zebra-like animal. Another instance 
which he cites is the case of domestic pigeons, the 
various breeds of which are supposed to be descended 
from the blue rock-pigeon. He crossed two mongrel 
birds whose coloring was totally unlike that of the rock, 
"and they produced a bird of as beautiful a blue color, 
with the white loins, double black wing-bar, and barred 
and white-edged tail-feathers, as any wild rock-pigeon." 
Such facts in regard to animals do not strike the 
general reader as especially wonderful. He has be- 
come so accustomed to hearing startling accounts of 
heredity in the breeding of animals, that nothing aston- 
ishes him. Apply similar reasoning to man, and the 
outcome will appear to be and is beyond all com- 
putation. For every child may show all manner of 



74 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

reversions ; he may bear the mark of a remote ancestor 
who lived far back in the past, or he may embody a 
mixture of characteristics that is different from the 
component elements which go to form it. This is 
almost certain to happen, because there is no family 
that has for a sufficiently long time been absolutely 
able to control all the various unions that have occurred 
in its line. Most of all is this true because no person 
is quite of one type in all his physical and mental com- 
position. One would think, according to the usual 
reasoning concerning inheritance in animals, that the 
most strongly marked traits, no matter what they were, 
would most surely leave deep impresses upon descend- 
ants, that a characteristic feature of the parent, of any 
sort at all, must be reproduced in the child ; but this 
does not necessarily follow. On the contrary, one finds 
that the opposite often is the case. Thus one rarely 
sees the son of a great musician equal his father in 
musical ability, or the son of a great lawyer take equal 
rank with him. What usually happens is that the 
hereditary ability, if there be any, shows itself in the 
form of a predisposition or a tendency, which, on 
account of the influence of the father's prestige, is apt 
to be magnified beyond its real worth. Thus one sees, 
more and more, that the plain, simple rules which 
govern the descent of animals cannot apply to that of 
man. Our human conditions are so complex, are so 
clearly the result of an artificial arrangement of affairs, 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 75 

that the resulting combination of things is quite differ- 
ent from what it would be, were we living in a state 
of nature. The laws, customs and discipline of civili- 
zation, while fitted to conserve the general welfare of 
society, are not at all designed to carry out the strin- 
gent laws of heredity. The result is, that by the com- 
bination of unnumbered ancestral traits and present 
artificial conditions working upon each other, we can 
be sure of very little in conclusions regarding heredity, 
and must be satisfied with the seemingly indefinite and 
dim consensus of forces which, in a general way, we 
call predisposition. 

The question of predisposition is a quite different 
one from that of strict heredity ; for here, instead of 
absolute reproduction of form or disposition, or both, 
there is merely such a moulding force at work upon 
the child's structure that the influence of environment 
is enough to turn the son in approximately the same 
direction as the father travelled. For reproduction, 
all the elements in question must be represented in 
the parent's germinal cells. There is almost nothing 
to prove that what does not exist in these cells can 
possibly be transmitted. For instance, moral training 
is no more an essential part of these germinal cells 
than good manners, nor is a cultured taste more cer- 
tain to be passed on to the next generation than a fine 
knowledge of the flavor of tea. The most that can be 
said of predisposition is that certain human beings are 



76 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

SO constituted as to act as good growing grounds, as 
good culture media, for a certain sort of impulse. 
And when outside conditions fall in such a way that 
influences favorable to the growth of certain states of 
mind or body exist, the characteristic reaction must 
result. Thus a child may have a natural inclination 
toward morality or industry or light-heartedness ; if 
the proper conditions exist, the quality in question will 
grow in commensurate degree. The " mute, inglori- 
ous Miltons " are mute and inglorious because they 
have the predisposition toward poetic conception and 
expression, but in other requirements are not suffi- 
ciently fortunate. 

In a somewhat similar way people are known to 
have a predisposition to certain sicknesses, say tuber^ 
culosis. Very few men of scientific training now speak 
of consumption as an hereditary disease. Rather they 
say and think that the person in question is of such 
a constitution that he very easily, under proper con- 
ditions, becomes a fertile ground upon which the germ 
of tuberculosis may grow. In this way an increasing 
number of diseases that at one time were thought to 
be absolutely hereditary are now counted, rightly 
enough, as either cases of direct infection of the 
child by a definite disease-germ from the parent, or 
merely a liability, a predisposition, in the child to that 
sickness. The child before birth may in this way be 
attacked by small-pox, malaria, measles, scarlatina. 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONME^^^ 77 

Asiatic cholera, or croupous pneumonia ; he may be 
born with any one of them ; but that does not say 
that they are hereditary diseases. All that one may 
with safety state is, that the germ has reached the 
unborn infant, and finding a fertile soil, has lived and 
flourished thereon. This is quite different from the 
idea that the connection between parent and child 
necessitates an unvarying transmission of an acquired 
disease, which, so long as it once exists, must run a 
definite course. There is always, in addition, the 
counter-fact that a predisposition of any kind may 
be more or less successfully combated. A fertile 
place may, as every one knows, be rendered less fertile, 
and also may be made sterile. 

There are many cases where common opinion sup- 
poses a congenital condition to be the result of hered- 
ity, of undoubted transmission from parent to child 
of a condition that formerly was thought to be beyond 
the range of interference. In these instances, careful 
thought cannot possibly agree with the supposition. 
A case in point is the belief, so rigorously held, that 
epilepsy, in all its various phases, must be a distinct 
disease that is in some invariable fashion handed on 
from one generation to another. Some years since a 
successful attempt to produce epilepsy artificially was 
made. Obersteiner, by various operations and mutila- 
tions of the nervous system, produced an epileptic 
condition in guinea pigs that imitated very exactly the 



7^ THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

symptoms of the natural disorder. A somewhat simi. 
lar condition consequently showed itself in the direct 
offspring of these animals. Ordinarily people would 
say that the disease was thus proved to be hereditary, 
that the parents suffered from it, and in due time 
their product showed like symptoms. On less of a 
basis than this many serious beliefs have rested ; on 
even a slighter basis many mothers have founded a 
strong faith in the efificacy of accidental impressions 
made upon a child before his birth. As a matter of 
fact, a more logical explanation would lie in the idea 
that the parents, by reason of their serious mutilations, 
came to have weakened and irritable nervous systems, 
and although they could not transmit the operations 
which they underwent, nevertheless, their young, as 
far as their brains and nerves are concerned, were 
feebly endowed. Various sorts of nervous irritability, 
among which were epileptoid manifestations, inevi- 
tably resulted. It is still easier to understand the 
occurrence, which is often a coincidence, of the so- 
called maternal impressions. Many mothers during 
pregnancy undergo some shock or nervous strain. 
The greater this is, the greater is the likelihood of 
interference with the nutrition of the infant, not as 
a matter of direct inheritance, but only as a method 
of lowering the mother's vitality, and through it, the 
child's. Whatever mark or blemish is noticed after 
birth is very apt to be referred to some of the count- 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT ^g 

less experiences in daily life to which it bears some 
real or fancied resemblance. So many of these experi- 
ences happen in the ordinary life of every person 
that there is no lack of them to serve as cause for 
whatever misfortunes that may occur. No notice is 
taken of the other countless accidents of all sorts, 
the vast number of disagreeable smells, sights, and 
sounds that assail every woman, whether pregnant 
or not. The innate desire to know the reason of 
things leads people on past the bounds of reason into 
the field of conjecture. This was finely and character- 
istically illustrated in a case that came under my 
notice a short time ago. A child was born with a 
mark on the back which in a general way represented 
the shape of a net. The mother then remembered 
that about four months previous she had accidentally 
been struck with a tennis ball, and lo ! there was the 
picture of a tennis net. Examination showed the 
mark to be merely a naevus of an irregular and broken 
contour. 

One must clearly understand that heredity in its 
action is comprehensive, far reaching, not easily moved. 
The individual is not, in his somatic constitution, easily 
affected, excepting in a theoretical sense, by slight 
influences of an extrinsic nature. Thinking in a purely 
ideal way, there is reason to believe that a certain part 
of the fertilized ovum, called the germ-plasm, is com^ 
posed of two particles of similar matter derived from 



8o THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

the parents, which parts, in their previous turn, had 
their origin from the grandparents, and so on. This 
germ-plasm is thus properly, so long as the race exists, 
immortal ; it can never die so long as men beget and 
women conceive ; it is practically unchangeable. It is 
accompanied by a so-called body-plasm from which the 
body develops. This is the part that changes with the 
passing months, that comes to bear the mark of exter- 
nal influences. The distinction between these two 
factors is a plain and salient one, that should, by all 
means, be clearly appreciated. The germ-plasm is as 
old as man, the body-plasm is just as old as the person 
to whom it belongs. The one may be called his real 
ancestral part, that varies merely as the resultant of 
the two lines of parentage conjoined. The other is his 
physical self, the sum of the influences of nutrition. 
This thing called nutrition is the main fact of interest 
to those who believe in training. It is the only part 
in man that is susceptible of cultivation. To try to 
cultivate anything else is much the same as trying to 
civilize a remote ancestor. Thus at a glance one can 
see that only in a partial way is development hereditary. 
Where somatic characteristics end, there heredity be- 
gins. A fairly important part of each person is born 
in a certain state without the possibility of change, 
and an attempt to influence it would be about as fea- 
sible as trying to bring a three-legged man into exist- 
ence. 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 8 1 

When one resolves the ordinary ideas of development 
into their last factors, one sees that what is usually 
meant by heredity is something quite different, is what 
should be included under the head of effects of nutri- 
tion. For instance, through some fault in nutrition, 
the process of ossification in the palate bone of a baby 
does not proceed far enough, the prenatal condition 
remains stationary, and a cleft palate is the result. Or, 
by an analogous factor in the nutrition of nerve cells, 
the developing child becomes grave or gay, brilliant or 
stupid. Or a father has fallen a victim of syphilis ; 
the body-plasm of his child is so affected that it shows 
the mark of the disease. Here again the result is one 
of nutrition, and proper attention to the environment 
can change the condition to something quite different. 
Here, then, is one of the most important facts in human 
life : the effect and the value of environment. This is 
the fact which does more than anything else to make 
people as we see them. As a matter of essential con- 
struction, men are all very much alike, for since they 
must have had the same evolution, they differ from 
each other mostly in the results of nutrition, of environ- 
ment. Germ-plasm is so little susceptible of change, 
is so rigid in its constitution and disposition, and has 
been so thoroughly subjected to inter-breeding and 
cross-breeding, that to mark off one man from another 
is wellnigh impossible. 

On the other hand, the medium in which a child is 



82 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

conceived, born, and nourished, is of the most telling 
value. His body and mind are predestined to certain 
conditions, not so much because he is descended from 
this line or that, as because certain obstacles retard 
him, or certain means of help carry him forward. 
These obstacles and helps are of no one particular 
sort ; they are spread over the whole sum of human 
experience. They begin long before the child is born, 
they continue actively in force until maturity, they then 
gradually decrease in a vanishing ratio. Conventional 
opinion says that a child is well born if his family has 
won a greater measure of applause than disfavor, if he 
has a body that is fairly regular in its parts, if his 
moral nature is of a sufficiently normal type to rebel 
at flagrant offences against morality and the public 
interest, as usually understood, and if his intellectual 
powers are sufficient to permit his making himself 
understood, and enable him to support himself. Now, 
for almost all of these factors he is not responsible, 
nor are they necessarily qualities which his parents 
possessed, or are capable of transmitting. He comes 
into the world as a mass of potentialities, for months 
he is the most neutral of creatures, whose functions 
are largely reflex and automatic, whose mental vigor 
is really nil. Little by little he gathers strength, the 
parts of his body gradually spread out in the irregu- 
lar ways of rapid growth. Measured by the standard 
of normal maturity, every piece of him is out of meas- 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT S3 

ure, is provisional, almost pathological. His whole con- 
stitution is temporary, and cannot even be regarded 
as the foundation of what he eventually will be. He 
is so plastic that his daily surroundings mould him 
as surely as a warm hand shapes a piece of wax. 
With added growth he approaches very slowly to the 
ordinary level ; but all his movements of mind and 
body are marked by the clumsiness, the wavering 
uncertainty of an unprepared state. His weakness 
cries aloud for affection and care. The answer ought 
to be given in the fullest protection, the absolute 
shielding from every sort of strain, mental, moral, and 
physical. He is in no condition to bear burdens, it 
is hard enough for him to find out that there are 
such things. His principal work should lie in being 
formed, in getting a straight back, big lungs, and a 
clear mind ; in possessing a nervous constitution which, 
as one of its functions, is capable of elaborating a moral 
sense that points straight. For such things are guar- 
anteed by nature to no one. Moreover, the child is 
so easily influenced, and the number of controlling 
factors about him is so large, that unless there is a 
fixed and constant plan of action, which is designed 
to fashion him in a certain manner, his final condi- 
tion will be settled by a ragged combination of chance 
influences. Under such circumstances, it is not at all 
wonderful that anomalous differences between parents 
and children commonly exist. 



84 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

The problem is finally one of nutrition in the broad- 
est sense. Whatever makes for the fullest develop- 
ment of cells is properly included in this term. Food, 
rest, tissue change, stimulation and over-stimulation 
are all merely parts. As the previous chapters and the 
plates facing pages 55 and 56 clearly show, the child is in 
practically every respect different from the adult, and 
every part of him is constantly changing. The only 
conclusion which one may draw from these facts is 
that his environment ought to be designed to further 
the proper growth, that his needs are different from 
those of his matured relatives, that disturbances of 
mind and body occur in him with the greatest readi- 
ness, and may produce immovable harm. These 
disturbances are generally due to the environment ; 
faulty food, faulty methods of rest, faulty ideas of 
excitement, are some of the causes involved. And, 
considering the importance of the matter, it is really 
wonderful that greater attention has not been paid 
to it. A man who without a proper training at- 
tempts the conduct of a suit at law would draw 
down ridicule upon himself ; he who without a suffi- 
cient course of instruction prescribes for the sick is 
punished by fine or imprisonment ; even the most 
ordinary workman needs an acquaintance with the 
nature of his work, before an employer will put a 
task in his hands. But for the right care of children 
no training in the mothers, nurses, or teachers is con- 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 8$ 

sidered essential. One of the natural results is that 
the standard exacted among such persons, instead of 
being very high, is very low. With them the main 
test of whether a child is being properly fed is that 
he does not die, the test of whether he is properly 
clad is that he does not freeze, the test of whether he 
is properly taught is that he sit quietly in school, and 
pass a sufficient number of examinations. As a matter 
of fact it would, doubtless, be better in many cases that 
he should die, or starve, or remain "uninstructed." 

The period of childhood involves, proportionally, 
more work, excitement and strain, than any other 
part of life. The little one has to eat all manner 
of strange foods, to learn the meaning of all sorts of 
strange things, to conform to all kinds of rules of 
conduct that are clearly artificial, the use of which 
he cannot understand. One can easily understand 
the difficulties of becoming accustomed to such re- 
quirements, when one knows that each of these items 
is of prime importance. Various articles of food differ 
very much from each other, and in their final use 
serve diverse ends. A child that is growing and 
learning some new fact of experience every hour, 
whose delicate nerve cells are not able to bear any 
great stress, needs an exact and wise attention to 
his dietary, much more so than, for instance, his 
father. The latter can, with benefit, live upon a 
mixed diet, and whether he consumes a somewhat 



86 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

smaller or larger percentage of proteids or of carbo- 
hydrates, is a matter of comparatively little impor- 
tance. His organism merely seeks to repair waste. 
But in the child the main object is an added one, the 
element of unimpaired growth. Every ounce of as- 
similated nourishment counts, every small bit of 
waste energy has its telling effect. And in the mat- 
ter of growth, it is necessary to remember that each 
element in the body calls for its particular sort of 
nutriment. Brain cells require proteid matter, bone 
tissue requires certain mineral salts. A dietary rich 
in starch (as in many vegetables and cereals) would 
serve neither one of these tissues. The distinctions 
between foods may be even more finely drawn. The 
curd of cow's milk is hard of digestion, much more 
so than that of some other mammals. A child with a 
delicate organism that requires a milk food might 
starve on cow's milk, even though its quality, per se, 
be very good. Or even if he lived, he might be poorly 
nourished, and show the effects in a locally or generally 
weakened body, or in a dull or abnormal mind. 

As he grows, his life experiences, in the ordinary 
family, broaden, far more rapidly than his develop- 
ment matures. The need for nourishment, for the 
right apportionment of the various elements of food, 
increases progressively. And in like measure, the 
danger of partial tissue-poverty increases. The faculty 
of emotional excitation is almost always neglected. 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 87 

There is no general idea of the necessity of regulating 
such impulses to the end of conserving energy. 
Fear, sorrow, joy, shame and love, in improper meas- 
ure, are broad avenues of waste. When he goes to 
school his work is enormously increased ; school au- 
thorities seem to think that their duties are best 
interpreted by putting upon children the heaviest 
instead of the lightest possible burdens. In fact, I 
know of no harder experience, no more trying ordeals, 
than what a child at this time undergoes. His ex- 
periences in the school environment are finely designed 
to encourage irritation and waste of nerve and muscle 
tissue ; the circumstances of instruction are useful for 
deadening instead of encouraging a normal standard 
of intellectual development. And it is just at this 
time that the diet receives the least attention. One 
would think that under such conditions an incentive 
for insisting upon the most wisely selected food exists 
much more than at any other time, but, unfortunately, 
such is not the case. The evil is general, and is as 
prevalent among the rich as among the poor, for 
there is no one class that has a monopoly of miscon- 
ceptions. In the one, the fault lies in poorly selected 
sorts of food, in the other in deficient quantity and 
quality. 

The ordinary home life of an infant is just as trying 
as his poorly adapted food. Even in his earliest days 
relatives and friends show a remarkable ignorance of 



88 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

his needs. His natural condition is one of perfect 
ignorance. His first acquaintance with life is a series 
of shocks. He is rudely exposed to heat and cold, he 
is too carelessly handled and tossed about, and under 
the plea of amusing him, various sorts of disagreeable 
noises are made, and equally disagreeable sights are 
forced on his attention. The grimaces which those in 
charge of him make, with the laudable intention of 
pleasing, are alone sufficient to frighten him. And 
immediately he is put under the strain of acquiring too 
much information. Every circumstance of his life, in 
the attempt to know and recognize it, requires an effort 
of the mind. This happens when the brain is only 
partly formed, is very weak, is fit only to vegetate and 
gather strength. During the years of its immaturity, 
because both physically and physiologically its constitu- 
tion is not capable of much resistance, it becomes tired 
very easily. The ordinary efforts to become acquainted 
with life, to understand the seemingly involved mean- 
ing of everyday events, to accustom the senses to a 
useful appreciation of so-called realities, and to conform 
in all external ways to the requirements of civilized 
life, are unquestionably most trying. These efforts are 
continuous ; there is no opportunity for intermission 
and rest ; and therefore, the resulting strain is all the 
greater. For it is a well-known fact that nerve cells 
in young animals easily become exhausted, and most 
rapidly of all where the stimulus is long continued. 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 89 

The most ordinary tests show this. Take a very young 
animal, say a dog, put him through exercises that re- 
quire as much concentration of attention for a few 
hours as he can give, and a microscopical examination 
of his nerve cells will show a tired, exhausted and 
worn-out condition. The limits of normal fatigue are 
easily overstepped in any young animal, and under 
such circumstances, the resulting over-fatigue must be 
regarded as permanent deterioration. Or, subject a 
child to any keen impulse of excitement, such as chil- 
dren are allowed regularly to experience. Immediately 
such fatigue ensues that his ordinary capabilities act 
with less promptness and efficiency. He distinguishes 
color less easily, his skin is less sensitive, his digestion 
is less capable and his excretory glands are less active. 
This does not take into account extreme cases of shock 
or terror, but merely such ordinary efforts as all chil- 
dren are apt to undergo. 

Repeated impressions on the brain tend to create a 
permanent condition ; the wear and tear which the 
ordinary child undergoes is greater than people usually 
estimate. The mental condition resulting is, thus, far 
different from what the normal adult possesses. It 
works less clearly, less logically and at a much greater 
expense. All in all, it goes to form in part the child's 
environment, which thus becomes proportionally health- 
ful or unhealthful. By such factors the child is affected 
throughout his whole life, even as far as the difference 



90 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

between a small and a greater power of resistance to 
disease, or the difference between an irritable or an 
equable nervous system, or even the difference between 
wrong and right action. Very commonly an impression 
upon the child is made in the way of deviations from 
normal standards that make life unnecessarily burden- 
some. And all these things, as well as countless others, 
can often be traced to the various forms of nutritional 
poverty. 

To the same cause one can likewise trace much of 
the unhappiness of children's lives, much of their wil- 
fulness, much of their viciousness. There are some 
common cases of this sort with which every one is 
familiar ; when a baby is restless and cross, incapable 
of having a quiet night, the cause is usually to be found 
in his manner of life, as constituted by food, rest and 
other similar factors. An excess of starch in his food 
may upturn a household. Or an older child may be 
unhappy, poorly nourished, or even vicious. A de- 
crease of oxygen and an increase of carbonic dioxide 
in the air which the child breathes makes a decided 
difference in the elimination of waste materials ; such 
matter, when stored up, may produce varying degrees 
of intoxication, of poisoning. And as a result, his 
ordinary characteristics are for the time changed. 
With sufficient repetition, the temporary condition 
may become more permanent. Such changes are all 
the easier, on account of the profoundly mixed charac- 



HEREDITY AND ENVIRONMENT 9 1 

ter of hereditary dispositions. A bias in one direction 
or another may be easily exaggerated into what seems 
a trait of profound importance. At the same time, 
really intelligent care could bring about quite a dif- 
ferent result. Ordinary casual judgment would define 
such a child as more or less vicious, would point to any 
traits in the direct ancestry as the determining cause, 
and would congratulate itself on the advantages of 
scientific knowledge. 

The gist of the matter is that usually too much blind 
reliance is placed on the commonly accepted ideas of 
heredity. People regularly think of the problem as a 
simple combination of known elements, instead of a 
complex process of both combination and inter-reaction 
of a great number of factors. Moreover, the true scope 
of heredity is not so great as they believe ; and what 
is unquestionably transmissible occurs in such a form 
as usually to constitute a predisposition of one kind or 
another. The constant, countless influences of environ- 
ment come in to decide upon the child's development. 
These influences have, as their main opponent, the 
theoretical intentions and academic ideas of parents 
and guardians ; but the opposition usually amounts to 
little. On the other hand, the effect of environment 
is not to be overestimated ; it acts every hour of the 
day, leaving impressions which, although rarely handed 
down to the next generation, are permanent with the 
individual. Parents control the bodies and minds, the 



92 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

hearts and souls of their children not so much by what 
their ancestors were as by what they themselves do and 
think. The results are just as sure as earlier writers, 
reckoning on other standards, estimated ; but the 
method of producing the results, and the results them- 
selves, are quite different. The direct responsibility of 
parents is very great, for there exists the relation of 
an active cause and an immediate effect. Instead of 
saying "Like father, like son," one rather should say, 
"As the father lives, so lives the son." The cases of 
worthy fathers having unworthy sons are usually those 
where the parents evoke esteem for certain laudable 
traits, but at the same time all the necessary conditions 
for the full development of the children's characters 
are not thoroughly conserved. A man may be a brill- 
iant mathematician, or a profound philosopher, without 
necessarily showing a fitting appreciation of the physi- 
cal and mental needs of his family. Proficiency in one 
direction does not necessarily imply an equal proficiency 
in others, and a bankrupt in business may be a brilliant 
success in rearing offspring. All in all, the general 
rule of the certainty of good results following careful 
and anxious effort holds good in the development of 
children just as well as in all other matters. The 
trustworthiness of children depends upon the elements 
of environment, acting upon certain inherited condi- 
tions which go to create the qualities of thinking 
clearly and seeing straight. 



CHAPTER V 

The Place of the Primary School in the Devel- 
opment OF the Child 

No subject concerns the interests or the sympathies 
of the community more closely than that of the educa- 
tion of children. The matter is so near to the general 
welfare that every possible method of interference or 
of development receives a warm reception. From the 
well-known year 171 7, when Frederick William I. of 
Prussia promulgated his edict of compulsory education, 
the public attention has inclined more and more toward 
the view that right education of children is the basis of 
natural advancement. From that time, when teaching 
was the harbor of the unsuccessful, the incompetent 
and the helpless, up to the present, when its value to 
the community is extolled and praised, is a far cry. 
In correspondence to the amount of skilled thought 
devoted to the matter, the civilization of the world has 
progressed. Such men as Socrates, Aristotle, Erasmus, 
Bacon, Comenius, Pestalozzi and Froebel have done 
more than hold schools or formulate a philosophy ; they 
have helped the civilization and culture of the world 
along by giant strides. 

93 



94 1''IE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

In the course of the development in teaching, the 
objects to be obtained have been fairly permanent ; but 
the methods have gradually changed. All along the line 
the first efforts were in the way of teaching the means 
of communication and computation ; upon these, as a 
foundation, were based the higher branches. In early 
times there seemed to be little or no problem in regard 
to teaching. It was required that the teacher should 
merely know as much of the subject in hand as he 
expected the scholar should learn ; whether he was to 
teach arithmetic to children, youths, or adults seemed of 
little difference. On the contrary, the main idea was 
that a certain number of facts was to be drilled into a 
scholar or a number of scholars. It was thought that 
any one who knew these facts could, just as well as any 
other person, impart the knowledge, in much the same 
way that one woman shows another how to cook, or a 
blacksmith teaches an apprentice to shape a horseshoe. 
That there is a further element in teaching than that 
of simple demonstration is a very modern conception. 
And it is only of very recent years that even a fairly 
correct idea of the difliculty of educating young chil- 
dren has been generally felt. And even now, although 
some teachers and psychologists are dissatisfied with 
the older methods of instruction, especially in the prim- 
ary schools, the large body of citizens and parents are 
only dimly conscious of the glaring deficiencies that are 
impeding the development of their children. 



THE PLACE OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL 95 

To a certain extent this is due to the fact that most 
parents at bottom regard a kindergarten or primary 
school as a good place in which to put their children, 
in order to be free for a few hours every day of the 
care of them. The children thereby have a means of 
using up surplus energy, as well as acquiring some 
discipline. But after all, the main object in most fami- 
lies is freedom from care. This has been so keenly 
felt that a certain successful school in New York pre- 
scribes methods of play and occupation for the greater 
part of the day, so that the smallest possible amount 
of responsibility for the proper use of the little ones' 
time rests upon the parents. The reason for this was 
stated to be the substitution of a fairly wise plan of 
play and work, in place of the lack of judicious super- 
vision under which the majority of children labor. 
The one advantage in this state of things is that par- 
ents, when brought face to face with the problem, 
are apt to concede their inability or unwillingness to 
assume the proper direction over their children, and 
so, when the opportunity presents, are all the more 
ready to hand them over to more competent care. 
Naturally it is unfortunate that such a condition exists, 
especially as there is no inherent necessity for it, ex- 
cepting the fact that parents and guardians are igno- 
rant of where their children's interest lies, and, as a 
rule, have no more definite guide by which to direct 
their efforts than their natural affection. 



96 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

Nevertheless, this spontaneous love, although gen- 
erally diffused, has been at the basis of some of the 
greatest advances in pedagogics. This was the force 
which actuated Pestalozzi and his pupil Froebel. Pes- 
talozzi in particular lacked careful preparation and care- 
ful training, and took up teaching only after having 
failed in attempts to make a career in other pursuits. 
He felt a wonderful sympathy for child-life ; his love 
and tenderness were unbounded, and by them he held 
his little ones under the strongest control. "I was 
persuaded," he wrote, "that my affection would change 
the state of my children just as quickly as the spring 
sun would awake to new life the earth that winter had 
benumbed." He clearly recognized that children need 
something more than mere restraint and government, 
and what he lacked in scientific knowledge he made up 
in sympathetic art. " I know no other order, method, 
or art," he wrote, "but that which resulted naturally 
from my children's conviction of my love for them, 
nor did I care to know any other." So long as he was 
alone, this affection was sufficient to guide him aright 
in his methods of care and development, even though 
his equipment was meagre. But such a faculty is hard 
to transfer, and so his assistants — as one would expect 
— could not duplicate his success. When, in speaking 
of his school at Yverdun, he said, "the whole is per- 
vaded by the great spirit of home union ; a pure 
fatherly and brotherly spirit rules all," he outlined a 



THE PLACE OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL 97 

condition that resulted from a particular agency, which 
could be reproduced only by a similarly gifted person. 
Thus it occurred under the guidance of Froebel, who, 
starting out as an apprentice in forestry, which he 
deserted for one pursuit after another, finally became 
a teacher at Frankfort, where his success was marked. 
So enthusiastic did he become, that he decided to 
spend two years with Pestalozzi at Yverdun. Later 
on he established a school at Keilhau, where he began 
to formulate the ideas that resulted in the kindergarten. 
The advance which this institution marked was a 
most noteworthy one. It substituted for an unintelli- 
gent rote-method, a warm, kindly spirit of help, of 
allowing the budding faculties to grow with a bear- 
able amount of freedom ; it helped the child to bloom. 
In fact, the likeness of a child to a plant these two 
pioneers in education dwelt upon time and time again. 
They delighted in advising their audience of the 
necessity of carefully shielding these delicate shoots, 
of carefully watering and nourishing them, of sedu- 
lously freeing them from fatiguing conditions. Con- 
sidered in the light of a new departure, the work was 
a wonderful one, marking, as it did, a revolution in 
accepted ideas. And if it had afterwards developed 
with one-half of the original force which the first 
leaders threw into it, there would now be no need to 
point with disfavor to the methods that pretend to 
guide our children's mental growth. 

H 



98 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

One of the most serious limitations of Froebel and 
his school was the fact that they had little of a scien- 
tific foundation upon which to base their generaliza- 
tions. Their conclusions in method rested upon a 
foundation of keen observation, of love, of fellowship 
and sympathy. But they knew very little of the 
reasons, outside of metaphysical considerations, for 
their courses of work ; nor were they prepared to 
elaborate these courses to their fullest utility and sim- 
plicity. In addition, there was a certain amount of 
lazy thought, of mysticism, in their belief that is 
almost inevitable in a new movement that evokes en- 
thusiasm. Thus, when Froebel speaks of a young 
child's knowledge of number as "an essential need of 
his inner nature, a certain yearning of his spirit," one 
can see at a glance that the enthusiasm of conviction 
blinded his clearness of sight. Again, in speaking of 
his third "gift" (a two-inch wooden cube), he says 
that "this gift includes in itself more outward mani- 
foldness, and, at the same time, makes the inward 
manifoldness yet more perceptible and manifest." This 
interpretation in all its symbolical amplitude might 
possibly suggest itself to a metaphysician who was 
pondering upon emblematic relations ; but it would be 
as far from the elementary workings of a child's 
mind as a conception of the binomial theorem or an 
appreciation of the beauties of the calculus. Many 
of his best known disciples go to even greater lengths 



THE PLACE OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL 99 

and construct a system of esoteric interpretations that 
can be equalled only by some mystic cult. Thus W. 
N. Hailman, in discussing the true inwardness of a 
wooden cylinder (second gift), says: "On revolving the 
cylinder on an axis parallel to the circular faces, we 
find that it incloses a solid, opaque sphere ; teaching 
us the lesson, not only that each member of the sec- 
ond gift contains each and all of the others, but that 
whatever is in the universe is in every individual part 
of it ; that even the meanest holds the elements of 
the noblest ; that the highest life is even in what in 
short-sighted conceit we call death." This may be 
very fine as abstract thought, but considered in its 
relation to the rudimentary mental action of a child, 
it soars far above the earth. 

Examples of this tendency can be multiplied indefi- 
nitely, and force one to the belief that the authors of 
them have set up an ideal or academic figment of child- 
life, a sort of glorified child-worship. In the same 
category must one include the deep interpretations 
which they give to many of the purposeless acts which 
are perfectly natural to infants and young children. 
When a baby pounds on a tin pan with a spoon or 
his list, they see intelligent attempts at ascertaining 
characteristic qualities and reactions. When purely 
by chance he makes some combination of color, they 
point with wondering exclamations to ancestral habits 
showing themselves in dawning abilities. When, with 

ILifC. 



lOO THE DEVELOPiMENT OF THE CHILD 

the profound lack of motor coordination, which must 
inevitably be present in young creatures, he casually 
scratches some meaningless lines, they treasure up the 
scrawl and seek in it for indications of primeval occu- 
pations and habits. The whole mass of work is over- 
laid with the marks of misconception, of false ideas, 
of false development and growth. Even so wise a 
man, so conservative a thinker, so cautious a scientist 
as Herbert Spencer, seems to be ignorant of a baby's 
powers, when he advises that "we should provide for 
the infant a sufficiency of objects presenting different 
degrees and kinds of resistance, a sufficiency of objects 
reflecting different amounts and qualities of light, and 
a sufficiency of sounds contrasted in their loudness, 
their pitch, and their timbre." All this would be well 
enough, if the infant in arms had the proper physio- 
logical apparatus for carefully discriminating the various 
degrees of resistance, of light, of sound ; or, having 
this apparatus, if he had the proper development of 
brain substance to estimate and use the results which 
the working of the apparatus obtained. But all this 
is far from fact. 

The truth of the matter is that the ordinary infant is 
an exceedingly immature animal ; that he is not only 
small and weak, but also he is unripe, he is undevel- 
oped, his muscles and brain structure are imperfect, 
his power of coordination is very weak, and his sense 
perceptions are exceedingly limited. As he grows, his 



THE PLACE OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL lOI 

various faculties grow unevenly, slowly, by fits and 
starts. One may put various colors before him, but for 
a long time he is unable to discriminate between them ; 
one may make various sounds, but he cannot distin- 
guish what they are, nor in many cases hear them. 
One may give him opportunities to develop his sense of 
touch, weight and temperature, but at the same time 
one ought to know that one's efforts are as surely 
wasted as attempts to cultivate a sand heap. This 
quality of sandy absorption — or, stated otherwise, 
impermeability to influences — is seen in much greater 
degree than most people, for the simple reason that 
their conceptions of infants are scarcely objective, are 
pre-formed, are able or willing to recognize. They 
have their minds made up as to what a young child 
ought to be, or at least what they think he ought to be. 
And it is with difficulty that they accustom themselves 
to other ideas. Even the most recent plans of primary 
schools and kindergarten work, although they represent 
great advances upon the conditions of former years, 
present evidences of this as clearly as one need wish 
to have them. 

For instance, it seems perfectly natural to almost all 
teachers that any normal child should be able to ac- 
complish practically any simple task or game or play- 
exercise. The main idea in the minds of most of them 
is, that the exercise should not on the surface be com- 
plex ; whether the child reacts wisely and healthfully is 



102 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

usually decided mainly by the fact of his receiving tern- 
porary pleasure. This test is plainly fallacious, as 
children are constantly eager to do things which are 
not helpful. A child has pleasure in remaining awake 
at night when he should be asleep ; he often delights in 
movements, such as rapidly whirling about as if on a 
pivot, which are harmful ; he will repeatedly make 
harsh and disagreeable noises that exhaust energy 
much more rapidly than pleasant sounds. He may for 
the time being enjoy these things, or countless others 
like them, so that his reception of any parts of a curric- 
ulum is not necessarily a test of its real value for him. 
Thus he may have a certain fairly great interest in the 
ordinary kindergarten exercises of weaving, plaiting 
and threading. Nevertheless, there is little doubt in 
my mind that these games are decidedly harmful. In 
the weak and immature condition of such children's 
eye-muscles, body-muscles and nerve-cells, the efforts 
required sufficiently to perfect motor accommodation to 
attain the desired end must unquestionably lead to 
strain and consequent exhaustion. The ordinary exer- 
cises in drawing are beyond doubt useless and harmful. 
In its best aspect, it is merely muscle-exercise, but 
even as such, it is, partly from its cramped and spas- 
modic position and movements, decidedly deficient. In 
almost all cases it is the crudest sort of caricature that 
represents and portrays nothing. It leads to no good, 
and it develops no ability, but, on the contrary, elevates 



THE PLACE OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL 103 

wrong and vicious presentments into undue prominence. 
Wiien it is "directed," it is, if anything, worse; for 
then it receives the badge of authoritative affirmation. 
Unless it is the "graphic record of a perceived fact," it 
is worse than valueless. Naturally one cannot expect 
small children to perceive correctly, nor does one look 
to them for exact records. 

In much the same way these pupils get no good from 
the sewing games ; they should not be forced to at- 
tempt the fine movements that are required. When I 
have seen little ones of four and five years of age 
laboriously trying, by straining all their little control of 
body and mind, to put a too fine needle through a series 
of correspondingly small holes, the thought of kindness 
turned to cruelty, of good being twisted into bad, has 
always come to me. In the same category are the 
exercises of pricking in outline, of stringing small 
beads, of outlining with seeds, beads and similarly 
minute objects. In all these exercises a brave show 
is made for the edification of visitors, examiners and 
parents ; but the benefit derived is doubtful, and al- 
though the children may seem more or less interested, 
— whether or not the interest is an unnaturally forced 
one, — nevertheless, the intended benefits are not neces- 
sarily acquired. In all this sort of work one can see 
that its basis is ordinary adult mental action and adult 
environment, but filed down and clipped off to such a 
body-size that its practicability, as well as its stability, 



104 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

has likewise departed. The method bears too much of 
the marks of useless pettiness, and in practice usually 
runs along with a commensurate absence of real spon- 
taneity. In related ways, the uses of the sand table, 
while not so bad, are distinctly lacking in real freedom ; 
there is too much confinement, too much of a pre- 
arranged order, too much of a lesson about it. It 
answers finely to take up a child's time, to ** keep him 
out of mischief," but it is far from being a scientific 
foundation for broad development. 

One should also find fault with the methods of 
story-telling now employed. With most teachers the 
principal test of a story is whether it holds the chil- 
dren's attention. This test is plainly a fallacious one, 
for there is, as a rule, but little reliance to be put 
upon a child's natural taste. There is no more reason 
why he should know what is best for his general in- 
tellectual welfare than that he should spontaneously 
recognize which is his most advantageous food. Just 
as when an infant, he puts everything that he can 
grasp into his mouth, so later he will show a keen in- 
terest in all manner of narrative, without any distinc- 
tion of whether it is good or bad. Thus he will listen 
with absorbed attention to ghost stories, which haunt 
him for nights ; he may like stories embodying un- 
favorable traits of character, as well as those which 
illustrate virtues. The main thing which he wants is 
that the story must show movement, action. He does 



THE PLACE OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL 105 

not require sequence, order, likelihood, or a healthy 
development of the component events. And princi- 
pally this is so, because he knows nothing of these 
qualities. One of his weakest spots lies in his rudi- 
mentary selective faculty. This appears to be almost 
equally dwarfed in his teachers, who seem disposed 
blindly to follow a schedule provided for them. At 
times the stories look as if they were expressly made 
for the purpose of keeping the little one from a know- 
ledge of reality, of true relations. Instead of making 
the ascent from preparatory existence to real life as 
plain, gradual and safe as possible, they evidently seek 
to encumber it, to make it steep and inaccessible. 

Thus, in one of the most recent synopses of kinder- 
garten work issued this year, a list of story-games is 
given, showing how the narrative of the exercises 
should be developed. Impersonation of qualities, occu- 
pations, various characters, animals, plants, and many 
animate and inanimate things is the main feature. 
And they are all without distinction treated on the 
same level. Thus, a child taught in this way esti- 
mates a windmill as having the same vitality as the 
miller, the movements of a weather vane are just as 
important as the exercises held in the church below, 
the life of a horse as weighty as that of the husband 
and father who drives him. In most of these story- 
games there is commonly a startling lack of discrimi- 
nation, of healthful relations, expressed in a healthy 



I06 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

way. Teachers regularly forget that a child is no fit 
person to appreciate the beautiful principle of Vart 
pour Vart. For what they are to be and think must 
be spread before them so plainly as to be utterly be- 
yond the accident of misconception. These games, 
with all their crudeness, are far from filling the re- 
quirements. And the saddest thing of all is, that one 
rarely finds even in the ideas of reputedly capable 
teachers an inkling of the false notions which children 
thereby receive, nor the difficulty of unlearning a set 
of relations acquired when the mental life is so plastic 
as to be almost fluid. That even reputedly wise kin- 
dergartners are blind to this danger is seen when in a 
pamphlet on the subject, one of them says: "It is 
almost needless to add that in these games lies the 
life and soul of the kindergarten," 

Another unestimated difficulty lies in the use of 
verse, mostly in the way of songs. These rhymes to 
an adult seem the simplest things imaginable. But 
they are so only when one is used to the conditions of 
rhymes. Any simple idea expressed in prose and in 
verse will make quite unlike impressions. In prose 
one has little in the order, arrangement or rhythm of 
the words to distract one's attention or to confuse the 
meaning. The contrary is true of verse. This is 
generally disregarded with children, and the natural 
result is that they sing and repeat words without hav- 
ing the faintest idea of what the meaning is ; and in 



THE PLACE OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL lO/ 

SO singing, they are therefore going through the very 
process of rote-learning which the kindergarten is sup- 
posed especially to frown upon. Nothing is easier 
than to find many flagrant examples of this abuse; 
and I have seen them in every kindergarten with 
which I am thoroughly familiar. Even in the very 
simple lines in which are the verses : 

"Barrels I bind as a cooper should do; 
And hard do I labor to make them fit true," 

I found unexpected confusion. I questioned four of 
the children who had been singing this rhyme, and 
found the strangest mixture of ideas. They all pro- 
nounced the first three words as if they were only 
one, and they had as little conception of what one 
meant by binding a barrel as they had of Devonian 
stratification. The inverted order and the slightly 
unusual use of words put them entirely off the track. 
This is true not only of very young children, but 
of children in general. They repeat words like a par- 
rot, and very rarely stop to inquire the meaning of 
them. Their environment is not so arranged that 
they may account, as far as their primitive powers 
admit, for every idea, phrase and word. Often they 
will go for months and sometimes for years with noth- 
ing but the mistiest notions of the right significance 
of the verses. Not only do the exigencies of rhyme 
help to obscure the meaning which they otherwise 



I08 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

might obtain, but also they tend to make the child 
uncertain in the daily uses of language. And not 
only are children of the kindergarten age so influ- 
enced, but also are those considerably older similarly 
affected. This was proved very clearly by the evi- 
dence of Dr. Joyce before the Manual and Technical 
Instruction Committee in England a short time ago. 
He believed that the ordinary boy is unable to under- 
stand even simple verse. As a proof, he told the 
Committee that he was in the habit of asking chil- 
dren the meaning of the following verses : 

" She is a rich and rare land, 
She is a fresh and fair land. 
She is a dear and rare land — 
This native land of mine." 

Few children knew what their native land was, or 
what it meant, and fewer still the meaning of the 
adjectives. One boy thought that the phrase "fair 
land " meant good soil ; he continued to explain that 
" She is a dear and rare land " meant that land was 
hard to get, and rents were high. 

To persist in such exercises leads to the employ- 
ment of words as sounds, without a concurrent growth 
or real understanding. The harm that this can do is 
not limited to the earliest years, but, on the contrary, 
may extend over a whole lifetime. As Pestalozzi said : 
"The use of mere words produces men who believe 



THE PLACE OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL 109 

that they have reached the goal, because their whole 
life has been spent in talking about it, but who never 
have run toward it, because no motive impelled them 
to make the effort." This error is merely an example 
of the general course of training which the present 
kindergarten provides. All through the exercises, 
one can see the evidences of a conventional idea 
of children's development, of the ignorance of any 
other duty than to complete as much of a stated 
schedule of instruction as the time and the limited 
capabilities of the children admit. Whatever changes 
in curriculum one may think necessary are equalled or 
exceeded by changes in the spirit and acquirements in 
the instructors who have undertaken to carry it out, 
and any method can be administered in such different 
ways that often it is hard to decide where the respon- 
sibility of its good or bad results rests. 

At all events, one knows that in the education — 
particularly the early education — of children certain 
facts in development and their elaborations must not 
be lost sight of. For example, we know that the 
senses develop before the higher intellectual powers, 
and it naturally follows that exercise of these senses 
goes before the more abstract lessons. Now the clear 
appreciation and use of mathematics — the relations of 
numbers — are unquestionably so abstract as plainly 
to be outside of the scope of the elementary school- 
child. It is true that children learn to count and use 



no THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

figures very early. It seems to be a special delight 
of nursery governesses and young aunts to teach little 
ones barely able to walk how to count up to ten, to 
twenty, even to a hundred, and then they point with 
pride to the brilliantly developing mind and the fine 
results of their efforts. It is true that young children 
can learn numbers by rote just as well as they can 
learn any other arrangements of sounds ; but in doing 
so, they derive no benefit from the process, and, on 
the other hand, receive harm. One must keep in 
mind that the faculty which governs mathematical 
computation is located among the higher centres in 
the cerebrum ; that this part of the brain is among 
the latest to attain maturity ; that therefore in child- 
hood it is in no condition to be put to a strain. 
Whenever a scholar at this age is forced into attempts 
to use this faculty, a process similar to any other sort 
of exhaustive work results. One can the more easily 
understand the inevitable outcome from a knowledge 
of the fact that the nerve-cells of children, being more 
or less in a state of unstable equilibrium, are easily 
exhausted, so that a consequent nerve poverty must 
show itself. Thus such children receive no permanent 
value from studies in mathematics, simple though they 
be ; and what is more, if these studies were not 
begun until greater maturity, — say at least ten years 
of age, — not only would a vast amount of nervous 
wear and tear be saved, but also the children would 



THE PLACE OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL III 

learn as much in one year as they formerly, under the 
present adverse conditions and methods, learnt in five. 
The time thus saved might be profitably employed in 
strengthening both mind and body. 

There are many other abuses that one can readily 
select from the ordinary elementary course, although 
because the main tendency of rational objections has 
now been shown, it is scarcely necessary to go over 
them at any length. Still, one may mention the 
futility of "exercises to cultivate the power of pro- 
nouncing new words with the aid of diacritical mark- 
ings " ^ in the first year of the elementary course. 
The scholar not only must learn these arbitrary 
markings, by means of the worst sort of rote-memo- 
rizing, but also, if he is to use them at all well, he 
must show a power of observation and association 
far beyond his years. If the attempt is seriously 
persisted in, the same process of nerve exhaustion 
mentioned above must of necessity come about. He 
may gratify the pride of an examining committee and 
his teacher, but only at the expense of his own 
healthful development. For related reasons, the ex- 
ercises in spelling are bad — so bad, in fact, that 
one should not feel the need of argument in the mat- 
ter. There is before me the latest "Word Book" 
that is supposed to be a model for teaching the 

^ From "the latest and most advanced word-book for elementary 
grades." 



112 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

young idea how to spell, that claims to offer "a care- 
fully developed and progressive plan for teaching the 
forms and values of every-day English words." It is 
supposed to be used by young children, although its 
plan, to my mind, seems to indicate something quite 
different. It transgresses almost all the psychological 
laws of child-life that it touches, and should be re- 
garded as an excellent means to inculcate a worthy 
appreciation of the difficulty of the English language. 
The compiler has furnished the obstacles of rote- 
learning, of confusing resemblances, of a meaningless 
accumulation of sounds, of arbitrary diacritical marks 
that for their learning require an adult's concentrated 
attention, of examples in verse and prose far beyond 
the scholar's years, of the multiplication of abstract 
rules, — of a method, in short, that is cumbersome, 
burdensome, unhealthy and wasteful. In a spirit of 
congratulation he informs us that in this wise book 
for children, little more than babes, " Lists of words 
often mispronounced are provided, together with many 
comparative exercises, including synonyms, words of 
opposite meaning, words of several meanings, words 
spelled alike and spelled differently. In these, as in 
all terms defined and in all selections for dictation, 
the use of diacritical marks is designed to lead natu- 
rally to the intelligent use of the dictionary." 

All in all, the present methods teach too much, 
and allow too little opportunity for development. 



THE PLACE OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL 113 

Parents depend too much upon the teacher, and be- 
lieve that their responsibility ends as soon as they 
hand the child over to the school. They do not with 
sufficient clearness see that the school rightly is no 
more than a means of mental discipline, and that its 
duty lies in building up a course in mental gym- 
nastics. Anything else, such as looking out for the 
physical basis of education, is foreign to it. The 
prime factor of caring for every unit of energy, of 
avoiding every item of waste, of nourishing and pro- 
tecting every budding function, in other words, of 
conserving nutrition, is absolutely ignored. Not only 
is there need of such care, but also there is a live 
duty to provide for it. Without such provision, the 
efforts of teaching not only are thrown away, but also 
they aid in harming the very children whom they 
are supposed to help. If the community has a right 
to insist upon the education of its children, it is nat- 
ural to believe in its associated right to insist upon 
such prophylactic measures on the part of parents, 
that the children may be in proper condition to be 
educated. Without this, no matter what the methods 
of instruction are, no one can be sure that a child 
is being benefited. It is much on the same plan of 
decreeing that a man should eat a certain amount, 
whether or not his stomach is able to assimilate the 
food. If this precaution is not taken, the law inflicts use- 
less and wanton cruelty, and instead of helping, harms. 



114 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

The need for a similar care is still greater with chil- 
dren, for not only is their present welfare concerned, 
but also that of all their future connections. If a 
teacher saw that a pupil was so astigmatic as to ren- 
der sight painful and imperfect, he would insist upon 
the means of investigation and relief before allowing 
him to continue in the class. The same reasoning 
applies to every part of the child's body that directly 
or indirectly affects the process of metabolism ; and 
it is a prerequisite of attempts in the way of formal 
education to insist upon an assurance that all the 
child's physical functions are normal, active and 
healthy. If a child's nose or throat is in such a 
condition that full respiration is not possible, then 
oxidation is impaired, tissue change is unnaturally 
limited, and consequently mental action and devel- 
opment are not normal. If a child is deficient in 
the sugar-forming ferments, or the secretion of hydro- 
chloric acid, or any of the constituent elements of 
the bile, his processes of digestion are impaired. As 
a result, fermentation and putrefaction of intestinal 
contents may supervene, with symptoms of mild poi- 
soning. Among these symptoms one frequently sees 
mental torpidity or obliquity, and even viciousness. 
The child is backward, and so retards the whole 
class ; he sees the teaching in a wrong light, and 
thus his knowledge of the matter, with the consequent 
development, is twisted ; he feels the weight of un- 



THE PLACE OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL I15 

usual burdens, and so becomes discouraged more 
easily than is necessary for him. 

The question of nutrition is of prime importance ; 
in fact there is nothing in education that I know of 
which is more so. It includes not merely the ques- 
tion of food, and the right proportion of the different 
food elements, as well as the perfect assimilation of 
them, but also all the other items of distribution of 
body heat, of rest, avoidance of undue fatigue, rec- 
reation fit in quality and amount, the selection and 
variety of occupation. Not one of these considera» 
tions may with impunity be neglected, and every one 
of them, when rightly fulfilled, carries a proportion- 
ate amount of benefit, which will tend to make a 
normal, vigorous and capable adult. To put each 
child right in these respects provides a foundation 
upon which to rear the superstructure of effective 
educational work. But without them the teacher 
works against odds which are great in proportion to 
existing shortcomings. One must appreciate that at 
the start the child is heavily handicapped ; that Froe- 
bel's opinion that "every child brings with him into 
the world the natural disposition to see correctly what 
is before him, or in other words, the truth," is very 
far from the fact. Every child has many reasons for 
not seeing the truth, and in most cases does not see 
it. If he is so nourished that every part of him 
works with a minimum amount of friction, the chances 



Il6 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

for the diversion of energy are lessened. It stands 
to plain reason that a child who suffers from an over- 
acting heart, with the inevitable cerebral and circu- 
latory disturbances, must be in poor condition to 
conduct the hard work of an organism that is growing 
and changing with great rapidity. In the same way, 
a sufferer from the air starvation which results from 
hypertrophied tonsils, from adenoid fungations, or one 
whose rest is broken, who has the obstacles of nervous 
irritation to overcome, cannot be fit material to go 
through the processes of healthful tissue change. 
Donaldson wisely says that "education consists in 
modifications of the central nervous system." Just 
as far as these modifications are well regulated and 
controlled will the child react to the normal stimuli 
of development. 

In deciding upon the best means of developing a 
child, it is often wise to follow Nature's plan, — not 
our own. Well-founded objection has been found with 
the commonly received idea that a child's mind may 
be made to order by a schoolmaster. It seems hardly 
necessary to reject the imputation, although practi- 
cally that is what we have been doing. On reading 
the dictum of so well-known a Froebelian as Conrad 
Diehl, one has proof of this. He says that " color is 
the first sensation of which an infant is capable. With 
the first ray of light that enters the retina of the 
eye, the presence of color forces itself upon the mind. 



THE PLACE OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL I17 

When light is present, color is present." Herr Diehl 
is far off the track. The retina is and must be inca- 
pable of distinguishing any color at all for some time, 
just as at first the ear is incapable of exact discrimi- 
nation of sound, or the skin of an accurate sense of 
touch. To follow out Diehl's idea tends to produce 
the mind " made to order by the schoolmaster," Just 
as we know that the range of sensations of an adult 
is only a fractional part of what really exists, so we 
know that the range of a young child is proportionally 
limited. To found a curriculum on the supposition of 
full potency in the latter is stupefying to him. It 
directly antagonizes the growth of one of the main 
educational needs : the development of judgment. It 
is only by carefully watching the various faculties and 
noticing the order of their appearance, coupled with 
the gradual exercise of them, that the priceless faculty 
of exact discrimination and comparative valuation is 
formed. By such means it is possible to bring into 
life a sense of proportion, of the relative value of 
things. In this way a clear road may be opened up 
for the progress of the power to observe. And when 
the little one notices more and more fully what is about 
him, what — as he must plainly recognize — his teach- 
ers and adult connections are constantly noticing, then 
perforce his power of expression will likewise grow. 
And in the same way that it is desirable to stimulate 
his sense of color, so it is necessary to stimulate his 



Il8 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

other normal senses. Who shall say that a child 
should have a carefully developed eye, and that his 
ear, his taste, his senses of smell and touch, should 
remain crude ? One may be as important as another, 
and all, when vsrisely brought out, may be made the 
means of a full and rounded growth. Through these 
faculties the child first comes into contact with the 
great world about him, and by the normal flourishing 
of all of them is he best able to take an adequate part 
in the life of the world. 

Since these senses are among the first faculties to 
show an active growth, it follows that first instruction 
should be devoted to them rather than to more abstract 
things. In following out this idea one would, for in- 
stance, have little children use a box of colors long 
before they made an attempt to draw lines, or to follow 
drawings made in outline. Such a course would be 
more pleasing to them, would be more in line with 
their natural development, and at the same time, would 
remove the disadvantages arising from too early a 
strain which drawing puts upon the power of exact 
coordination. To limit them to small and exact exer- 
cises, is unquestionably harmful, for the whole mech- 
anism of their bodies and minds calls for freedom 
and lack of restraint. For similar reasons the sand 
table should give way to a large pile of sand or dirt, 
where they could dig and delve, could play and build 
with utter freedom. If one compares the actions of 



THE PLACE OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL II9 

a class of children working at a sand table with those 
seen on the sand of the seashore, or in the dirt of a 
garden, one will have no further need of argument. 
So far as possible, all unnecessary restraints should 
be removed. The hard confines of the ordinary room 
for kindergarten and elementary work should be abol- 
ished. The requirements of the word kindergarten 
should be fulfilled. Sessions should be held in a gar- 
den, rather than within the unlovely walls of a bleak 
room. The change could be easily made even in the 
ordinary city school. The roof, when properly en- 
closed, would make the finest sort of solarium, where 
natural conditions could be imitated with artistic and 
hygienic exactness. As things are now, children spend 
an important part of their lives in cages, the regula- 
tions controlling them are those fit for captives, and 
the physical discipline of making them sit in stiff and 
studied attitudes on poorly shaped benches is an 
admirable one to develop a race of puppets. There 
is not enough freedom, not enough spontaneity ; the 
common function of the elementary teacher is too 
much that of a keeper or an upper nurse maid, and 
too many believe that her charges are properly influ- 
enced only when they fear and dread her. 

It is not necessary to go much further into details, 
and one can easily follow out the main idea, and apply 
it to studies which come later in the school life. One 
must keep in mind that every subject should, in its 



120 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

claim for a place in the curriculum, be judged by its 
adaptability to the child's growth. For instance, gram- 
mar, which is highly abstract, has no place in either 
elementary or the so-called grammar schools. It should 
be confined to high schools or the secondary schools, 
where the mental development of the students ap- 
proaches the adult form. On the other hand, the 
modern languages, taught not from books, but only 
from the conversation of walks, games, and practical 
"talks," might form a part of the course of very young 
children, whose speech centre develops very early. 
The resulting exercise would differ totally from the 
later work now done in the classic languages, which are 
taught as grammar is taught, and so should be kept for 
later years. Again, one might take up some selected 
work in physical geography, and so manipulate it as to 
make it extremely interesting and beneficial to very 
young children. But political geography should under 
no circumstances be touched until the pupil is well 
enough developed to understand the principles upon 
which the history of national life is founded. 

It is an easy task to go through the regular course of 
studies, and select what is good and what bad, and the 
main factor which inevitably will lead to this choice is 
the better education of teachers. We must entirely 
get rid of the idea that any person who can pass the 
meagre examinations for teachers is competent to 
teach, and the belief that the youngest children require 



THE PLACE OF THE PRIMARY SCHOOL 121 

the teachers of least skill and ability is still more 
viciously harmful. Such children, who are bundles of 
possibilities as yet unsolidified, are the very ones who 
need the wisest direction. And if they were wisely 
directed, their later development would be much surer, 
better, nobler. In the face of such teaching there 
would be less cause for complaint, there would be less 
cause for men like Herbert Spencer to condemn the 
methods upon which the advancement of the commun- 
ity rests. Not unjustly does he exclaim: "What with 
perceptions unnaturally dulled by early thwartings, and 
a coerced attention to books — what with the mental 
confusion produced by teaching subjects before they 
can be understood, and in each of them giving general- 
izations before the facts of which these are the general- 
izations — what with making the pupil a mere passive 
recipient of others' ideas, and not leading him to be an 
active enquirer, and what with taxing the mind to 
excess, there are few minds as efficient as they might 
be." 



CHAPTER VI 

The Place of Religion in the Development of 
A Child 

There is so much in a child's life that rests on 
belief, and by necessity he must be so accustomed to 
taking things on faith, that he of all beings seems 
naturally prepared to accept the religious idea and be 
governed by it. Moreover, he has the great forces 
of custom and habit, of imitation, of the weight of 
authority, working upon him, to the end of inducing 
a participation in devotional forms and a varyingly 
blind loyalty to certain received articles of faith. 
Wisely enough Maudesley has remarked : " To say 
that the great majority of men reason in the true 
sense of the word is the greatest nonsense in the 
world ; they get their beliefs as they do their instincts 
and their habits, as a part of their inherited constitu- 
tion, of their education, and the routine of their lives." 
That this is true in a large measure should not be 
doubted, for the evidence of it, wherever we turn, is 
before our eyes. 

A child who is brought up in a Protestant family 

122 



THE PLACE OF RELIGION 1 23 

looks upon the doctrine of Papal infallibility as unrea- 
sonable, while the offspring of Roman Catholic parents 
sees in it all necessary sanity of truth. Among the 
Persians, children are soothed or frightened by won- 
drous tales of jins and devs, which to those of occi- 
dental training seem no better than stories of fairies 
and gnomes. Even in the limits of a single, homo- 
geneous people, one may find equally radical differences 
according to changes which lapse of time brings; 
among the ancient Jews before the Babylonian cap- 
tivity the children grew up to believe that there were 
angels, but never did they have faith in the existence 
of devils. Even in Job, Satan was not so much of a 
malevolent spirit, as a fault-finding, a critical one. 
But after the captivity the belief in which children 
participated was a wider one ; bad angels as well as 
good had their place ; the idea of good and evil, of the 
free choice between them, of a future life in which 
good was rewarded and evil punished ; in fact, many 
of the elements of a purely teleological system, the 
direct descendant of the religion of Zoroaster, came 
into Judaism. And the difference between post- 
Babylonian and modern Judaism is just as striking. 

There seems to be in the vast majority of people 
a natural need for some sort of belief ; an inborn 
desire to place dependence upon forces outside of 
their experience and knowledge. And this when 
brought into contact with environmental influences 



124 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

determines for ages the form of belief. Moreover, 
with this fact in mind it is very interesting to know 
that there is a remarkable similarity between most 
of the principal religions of the world, due partly to 
the fact of their common and remote descent. This 
is easily followed out when one notes that the direction 
of descent in most peoples points to that ancient 
mother-race, the Aryans. This people at a time when 
Europe was probably an unpeopled wilderness lived 
in Central Asia. From this starting-point emigrations 
took place in various directions, but mainly towards 
the west and northwest. Doubtless the first band 
was the Celts, who came to inhabit a large part of 
Europe. The bands that later on produced respec- 
tively the Italians, the Greeks and the Teutons fol- 
lowed in their various ways. One of the offshoots 
founded the Persian kingdom, becoming the Medes 
and the Persians of history; another body, having made 
their way north of the Caspian, developed into the 
Slavonic nations. Very far back Egypt received its 
inhabitants. And the remnant of the mother-stock 
overflowed in powerful bands through the passes of 
the Himalayas and Hindu Kush into the Punjab, and 
became, as Bramans and Rajputs, the dominant race 
in the valley of the Ganges. 

These branches with a common ancestry and a com- 
mon unity of past experiences bore in their customs, 
beliefs and language many distinguishing marks, all 



THE PLACE OF RELIGION 12$ 

of which point in one direction. There is a striking 
similarity in their names of domestic animals and 
domestic life, words which they used before the time 
of their migrations. On the other hand, names of wild 
animals, of warfare, of all the countless circumstances 
of changed conditions, scenes and occupations vary 
with the time and place of their growth. In the same 
way they carried with them folk-tales, superstitions 
and beliefs that frightened, delighted and comforted 
them through countless ages, that served as the basis 
of substantial parts of their religions, that gave rise 
to their innumerable gods and demons, their nymphs 
and fauns and satyrs, their giants and trolls, their 
dwarfs and elves. And even to-day in our advanced 
civilization one can see the general beliefs covered 
over with marks that point unwaveringly to the dark 
and hidden past. 

It is exceedingly interesting to compare some of _the 
principal religions and note how many points of close 
agreement they have which are founded upon the most 
ancient myths, beliefs that unquestionably indicate a 
common origin and a common method of emotional 
excitation. For instance, the Hindoo Crishna, the 
Persian Mithras, the Egyptian Osiris, the Sun-gods 
Hercules and Dionysius, and others besides, all of 
whom were called saviours and worshiped as such, had 
much the same history. They were born on the 25th 
of December, the day in the winter solstice, when the 



126 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

sun begins its apparent annual northward journey. 
They all had virgin mothers, and the Scandinavian 
Frigga, the Buddhist Maya-Maya, the Egyptian Isis, 
the Hindoo Devaki, the Greek Semele, are identical. 
They had strikingly similar life histories, they per- 
formed much the same miracles, the number of their 
disciples was curiously often alike, they were perse- 
cuted, slain, and rose from the dead to ascend into 
heaven. A triune god was worshiped all the way from 
the rugged land of the Scandinavians to the fertile 
banks of the Egyptian Nile. And curiously enough 
one can trace such widely diverse systems as the 
ancient Greek on the one hand and more purely 
modern customs on the other back to a common stand- 
ard in Egypt. Herodotus says that such is the source 
of the names of almost all the gods ; the Oracles and 
the Eleusinian Mysteries had a like descent. And he 
adds that the Egyptians were the first to introduce 
public festivals, processions and solemn supplications, 
which the Greeks learned from them. Much later, 
after the time and writings of Tertullian, an equally 
strong effect was produced by this ancient people of 
the land of the Nile. Beliefs and conceptions of the 
Trinity as expounded by Egyptian theology became 
freely known. Isis was once more worshiped, although 
under a changed name, and her image, standing on a 
crescent moon, was almost as common then as now. 
"The well-known effigy of that Goddess, with the 



THE PLACE OF RELIGION 12/ 

infant Horus in her arms, has descended to our days 
in the beautiful, artistic creations of the Madonna and 
Child. Such restorations of old conceptions under 
novel forms were everywhere received with delight. 
When it was announced to the Ephesians that the 
Council of that place, headed by Cyril, had decreed 
that the Virgin should be called ' the Mother of God,' 
with tears of joy they embraced the knees of their 
bishop ; it was the old instinct peeping out ; their 
ancestors would have done the same for Diana." 

Instances of the prevalence of these ideas can be 
indefinitely multiplied. Man in a certain phase of his 
being is unquestionably religious. Moreover, he gener- 
ally has a strain of credulity in him that readily leads 
him into the abuses of faith, into the ways of supersti- 
tion. He has his times of weakness when he naturally 
turns to what seems a higher power or authority, to 
whom he may confess his sins whether of omission or 
commission, to whom he may look for praise of the 
good and blame of the bad, who will show a broad 
bosom to the sinner upon which to throw himself in 
times of doubt and trial. Although some of the 
world's great men have been religious, nevertheless, 
one may with safety say that the weaker the man the 
greater will be the likelihood of his adopting super- 
stition instead of intelligent faith. That which has 
always stood before him as the head of authority and 
power far exceeding his own is what he is bound to 



128 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

pray to. Whatever credulity he may have will surely 
confuse senseless with reasonable authority. Whether 
his belief is founded upon ancestor worship, sun wor- 
ship, or superstition makes very little difference. It 
is really not essential that there be in his creed the 
greatest possible approach to reason. Indeed, the very 
condition in which religion is commonly of most use is 
the one where the reason is least apt to be in full and 
unimpeded sway. The highly emotional states, where 
excitement is active, are the most favorable for the 
growth of religion. A man who is exalted by stimu- 
lants, by the unrestrained action of certain camp- 
meetings, a woman who is disappointed in love or 
whose emotional needs are unfulfilled, are very liable 
to receive an accession of faith. A man, who is 
crushed, who is struggling despairingly, who has been 
abused and harassed until his nervous irritation is 
pathological, is apt to turn a willing face to the prom- 
ises of spiritual comfort and rest, of protection and 
reward for the hardships through which he has strug- 
gled. In this way belief assumes the dignity of a vital 
function, a phase of mind that is necessarily associated 
with an unstable and perturbed state of the emotions, 
in which whatever is affirmed positively and with con- 
viction or whatever has had a cumulative force in the 
person's processes of thought comes to be accepted as 
proven. Thus Parker believes that " creeds — have 
come down to us with the force of centuries behind 



THE rLACE OF RELIGION 1 29 

them. They are accepted in their traditional form 
chiefly because by multitudinous repetitions they have 
been beaten in upon the mind, and in most cases have 
been yielded credence without question or reasoning." 
Whether ethics, right conduct, be associated is really 
immaterial. In most religious systems it is; but the 
two factors may work for or against each other or 
quite independently of each other without either being 
thereby seriously affected. 

These facts are of universal application, and the 
phases of feeling which they represent may be found 
among any people and at any time. They should be 
regarded with the utmost respect ; for although they 
are susceptible of weak uses, nevertheless they serve 
at times as starting-points of some of the finest mo- 
tives and emotions of which man is capable. In the 
same way that abnormal excitement and the conse- 
quent excesses occur in Southern and Western camp- 
meetings, so have like conditions taken place among 
savage tribes, so have happened the Siva worship in 
India, the fanatical allegiance to the Bacchic orgies 
and the pythoness at Delphi, the whirling dervishes 
of the Mohammedans, and the Northern Shamanism. 
Wherever religion is not governed by a rational idea 
the natural result is bound to be an excess in the way 
of fanaticism or superstition. The calmer and more 
rational side of religion represents quite a different ele- 
ment — that of contemplation, of philosophy, of a calm 



130 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

and elevated view of human relations. Such a condi- 
tion is radically different from the one that produces 
the violent ebullitions of emotion which result in such 
excrescences as flagellation, as the various abuses of 
sexual affection. Credulity has no part in it, a blind 
adherence to an anthropomorphic ideal 'is very far from 
it. It represents in its best form a predominance of 
the nobler, the more elevated part of human nature 
which gradually becomes free enough to recognize the 
existence and the need of an ideal, and recognizing it 
tries to elicit a mental attitude that naturally swings 
in unison with it. This may most clearly be seen in 
prayer, which does not by any means stand for the 
asking of a favor or a benefit nor the expectation or 
wish to obtain any sort of gain ; much rather does it 
signify the attempt to project the mind into a plane 
which is higher and purer than its ordinary level, to 
create a subjective influence that may show itself in 
objective action. When religion produces these re- 
sults, it becomes one of the finest influences in the 
world, without regard to its origin or its environment. 
However true this may be of adults, it does not 
apply to the child, and attempts to force it upon him 
lead to clearly unfortunate results. Only after long 
years of development is he able to attain the adult's 
religious view-point. His natural state puts him in 
the condition of a savage, who is incapable of attain- 
ing a fine religious feeling. The low form of emo- 



THE PLACE OF RELIGION I3I 

tions which he feels renders the abuses of religious 
feeling inevitable. His disposition is one of ignorance, 
of imperfectly constructed relations, of prone credulity. 
The crass idolatry, from which the world has in part 
struggled, will be the likeliest belief for his imagina- 
tion to seize upon, and out of it he will construct the 
fabric of his religion. To him there is no inherent 
and reasonable distinction between falsehood and truth. 
He naturally inclines to superstition because its beliefs 
titillate his wonder-loving cast of mind. Without the 
restraints which mental maturity insures he is bound 
to fall into errors that his untried powers are sure to 
cause. It is just as easy for him to believe that God 
will kill bad little boys by a thunderbolt as it is to 
recognize the orderly working of an electric current. 
There is no doubt that he would rather believe a tale 
of miracles than a recital of plain facts. A tale of 
fairies and dwarfs is just as real to him as the recital 
of holy events which concern the acts of the good 
angels and Satan. In fact, in so far as he is normal 
he will want to hear stories of any sort, but mostly 
those which have narrative action in them. For him- 
self he requires constant action, restraint is unnatural 
and becomes possible not only by practice but also by 
the growth of certain parts of his nervous system which 
are somewhat tardy in their development. For this 
reason, as well as on account of the natural immaturity 
of his mind, he is not capable of the spiritual elevation 



132 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

which is absolutely essential to a serviceable religious 
feeling. During all his childhood he remains the grow- 
ing animal that knows very little of what adults call 
reality. He is utterly removed from the culture of 
to-day, he is quite unable to appreciate the advances 
that have been made from past standards, and the 
errors of undeveloped mankind are what is most natu- 
ral to him. So far as his religious sense goes he is 
on the plane of the Terra del Fuegians who blow into 
the air to keep away evil spirits, or the Australian 
Bushmen who believe in an invisible man in heaven 
to whom they pray before going to war, or the South 
American Payaguas who bury arms and clothing with 
their dead to be used by them in another life. He 
cannot see beyond the present ; the standards, the 
authorities, and the limitations of his existing environ- 
ment seem the inevitable and the final boundaries of 
the universe. On the plane of them he reckons the 
worth and the fallibility of whatever ideas he may 
have. His mind is grossly receptive, not analytical, 
and a necessity for pure truth is not one of his 
needs. He is absolutely impervious to considerations 
of purely ideal thoughts and actions, but under stress 
of command and instruction may respond to them in 
much the same way that he would respond to any 
other sort of teaching. He cannot be said to have 
an intelligent appreciation of underlying principles ; all 
that one may expect him to do is to exhibit a rational 



THE PLACE OF RELIGION 1 33 

obedience to authoritative customs and demands. His 
main needs are those which provide for his nutrition ; 
to this he is most easily amenable ; beyond it his sight 
is dim. 

It is for such reasons that his religious insight is 
limited and the depth of his religious receptivity is 
notably small. Pagan fear and pagan lack of eleva- 
tion are part of the bonds that unite him to the con- 
ditions of a remote past, making his attitude that of 
the undeveloped heathen. His idea of God is and 
must be grossly anthropomorphic. He thinks of God 
as a big man who lives far away, and whose powers 
are strange and at times oppressive. He thinks of 
Him as a being who is moved by caprice, by anger, 
by cajolery, by pleasure, — in short, by the various 
impulses that move fallible human beings. From 
his guardians he readily assimilates the conception 
that God is constantly spying upon him in order to 
find out his misdeeds ; his attitude towards Him is 
one of fear and often of repulsion. The religious 
adult looks to his deity for an elevating strength of 
soul, for the peace and consolation of spiritual com- 
munion, for an emotional uplifting that at times passes 
all understanding. But the child looks at Him as 
an adjunct to the disciplinary armamentarium of the 
household ; he is naturally apt to regard Him as little 
removed from a bug-a-boo. He is totally unable, from 
the unripeness of his mind, to know the meaning of 



134 TIIK DEVELOPMI'.NT OF THE CHILD 

reverence, to feel the need of a religious growth, oi 
even the elements of spirituality. It is perfectly true 
that with his faculty of crude credulity, of easily 
aroused fear, of inherent tendency to absorb wonder- 
tales and superstition, he is easily forced into a 
seeming respect for religious precepts and biblical 
personages. I lis faith is lightly aroused, at times, 
for ridiculously slight causes. But there is no solid 
basis to it ; it is always poorly conceived, and cannot 
possibly appeal to his reason, or the parts of him 
which lead to nobility of mind and heart. 

Instead of these fine influences one constantly sees 
grotesque effects of religious training, twisted ideas, 
twisted relations, twisted motives and plans of conduct 
that are touchingly ridiculous in the lack of conso- 
nance with the gravity of the sentiments which they 
caricature. It is even more touching to notice how 
parents, unconsciously recognizing the child's inability 
to absorb truly religious ideas, smile indulgently at 
his errors and fantastic interpretations, or with an 
attempt to maintain gravity of expression, seek to 
reprove him, and promise various and divers sort of 
vengeance from on high in case of infraction of ordi- 
nary rules. They rarely do anything to diminish his 
natural tendency to superstition, to fetich-worship, 
partly, it seems, because faith of any sort is apt to 
be thought holy, and attempts to explain matters — 
if only l)ecausc the chikl cannot rightly understand 



THE PLACE OF RELIGION 135 

religious matters — may evidently create doubt too 
soon in his mind. 

In order to sec how well this agrees with facts we 
need only take some characteristic anecdotes of chil- 
dren's religious feeling. I have tried to select such 
instances as appeared fair, and most of all, those said 
by children whose surroundings were ordinarily, or 
more than ordinarily, reverent. In justice I must say 
that in no case do I believe that the little ones bore 
the faintest idea of disrespect or blasphemy. They 
made the remarks in the best of faith, and when they 
fell short of piety, it was not due to intention, but 
rather to their evident lack of si)iritual appreciation. 
They saw no difference between things earthly and 
heavenly, and honestly spoke out what was in their 
minds. For instance, take the case of C. J., a boy 
of ten years, whose general manner of life, on account 
of his physical delicacy, had been carefully watched. 
When he was told the story of Jesus walking on the 
water, he innocently asked whether Jesus' mother 
scolded him for getting his feet wet. Another child, 
nearly as old, was in the habit of repeating the grace 
before meals for the family. One day, after finishing- 
the usual prayer, he said, with conviction that he had 
said those very same words time after time, that he 
was beginning to tire of them, that he thought God 
must be weary of hearing monotonous repetitions of 
the same idea. Principal Russell quotes a case of two 



136 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

boys who were talking about the rain. J. was giving 
whatever information he had to W., and finally said : 
"When the clouds are rent or opened, the rain drops 
out. Rent means torn, just as you would tear your 
clothes." W., after thinking for a time, exclaimed : 
" I should think God's mother would get tired mend- 
ing." I remember a girl, an only child, in very good 
circumstances and much petted, whom I was treating 
for typhoid fever. Her mother had been telling her 
of God's great love ; that even the sparrows, insig- 
nificant as they are, were included in it. The child 
retorted quietly : " Don't you think that God spends 
too much time on sparrows .-• If He gave a little more 
attention to me, possibly I shouldn't have to go for 
a whole month without a bit of real, solid food." 
Another case is that of a girl of about eleven, an 
unusually nafve child. Several men were sitting about 
the room, after dinner, discussing the Single Tax 
theory. One, in the course of his remarks, said : 
"There is not a spot on this footstool," etc., etc. 
The little girl, who was sitting on my knee, whis- 
pered, "What footstool.''" As quietly, I explained 
that he referred to the earth as the footstool of God. 
"O-h-h," muttered the child, in astonishment. "What 
long legs ! " Her face was perfectly grave ; not for 
a moment did she think of irreverence. The sug- 
gested idea was that God must be an exceedingly 
big man. 



THE PLACE OF RELIGION 1 37 

Any one who has been much with children can multi- 
ply such instances indefinitely ; they are part of their 
daily experience. They show how very far from the 
possibility of a helpful and elevating conception of 
truly religious life children are. It is extremely doubt- 
ful whether they are capable of anything better than 
a travesty on matters of really spiritual import. And 
whatever attempts one makes to impose upon them a 
system that is beyond them and to which they cannot 
naturally be amenable must necessarily end in distor- 
tions. Such a result is not only deplorable in itself, but 
also leads to misconceptions which in later life inevi- 
tably tend to lower in their estimation the value of 
religion and the claims which it makes. It stands to 
reason that when a child comes to realize the crudeness 
of his early beliefs, that he has been fed upon ideas 
which while they were represented to hold all holiness 
and precious truth really contain many germs and cir- 
cumstances of fabled life, of error, of superstition, — it 
stands to reason, I say, that under such conditions his 
belief in the whole system must be shaken. He cannot 
avoid looking at it as a means of temporary control, as 
a thing which may be temporarily useful in controlling 
the passing exuberance of childish waywardness ; but, 
at the same time, it must be hard for him to see in 
it the vital truth, the active principles upon which 
it ought to rest. And while this is unquestionably 
unfortunate, it would doubtless be even more so for 



138 Till'; Di'.vi'.i.or.Mi'.Ni' ov iiii'; child 

him to continue tlicsc bt-'lit'ls, vvliiiii he was able to 
fei'l as a child, into the lime of manhood. We uncon- 
sciously feed lliat the beliefs of these two times are 
radically different from t-ach other, and this alone 
would be suiricient to prove that what wo teach our 
children is wronj;-, that it must be overthrown, that 
we consider them iuiapable of i)artici|)atin<;' in what 
seems a true and rational system of relij^ious faith. If 
they arc to have any such code at all, it must be one 
which is just as true for their early as their later 
years. And so lon^- as this is impossible, so long as 
the unripeness of their minds and their generally 
undeveloped slate forbid the gras})ing of a full-grown 
system, then something else which has more of sta- 
bility and as much of disciplinary features should take 
the unhlled place. 

As one would loi;ically expect, children are especially 
liable to tlu^ various excesses which result from the per- 
turbed condition of their unstable emotional and imagi- 
native natures. One does not look to them for keen 
discrimination between what is reasonable and what is 
unreasonable, nor for an exact separation of illusive sub- 
jective conditions from more rational objective circum- 
stances. Concrete cases of the abuses of religious 
feeling one finds easily enough. They occur in every 
community and every age, wherever a child is found 
whose sensitive nature receives so strong an impulse 
as to be l\)rced out of the line of ordinary conduct. 



TIIM l'I,A<l'; OF RI'll.lCION I39 

Siirh insl;inccs as thai ol' "The Welsh Isisliiig' (jiil," of 
chililic'ii who hchcvc that they are eaUed upon to show 
some iniiacuh)us power of (Hvine iiileiveutioii, as that 
of Hernaclette Soiibiious, who not many years a{j;o 
founded the wonder-woikui^ shrine at Lourdes. Tlie 
case of this ehihl while not more remarkable in its gene- 
sis tlian that of many others, is interestinji^ on aeeount 
of the widespread results of her peeuliar mental eon- 
dition. She was a plain, simple village maid, of a 
strongly mystical cast of mind, whose circumstances 
were the usual ones of her class. She had heard mudi 
about saints and miracles and was deeply impressed by 
the stories about them. 

One day she went about her usual duty of gather- 
ing wood. On the way she had to cross a stream, 
and began to take off her stockings. As she stooped 
down she became conscious of a presence that suddenly 
made itself manifest before her, and when she regarded 
it fully she saw a wonderfully beautiful woman whom she 
knew immediately to be the Virgin. The brilliant love- 
liness of the figure was beyond her powers of descrip- 
tion or even full recognition. It was, as she thought, 
superhuman, God-like. The girl fell ui)on her knees 
and worshiped in adoration. At later times she again 
saw and even spoke to the apparition. Her relatives 
and friends at first ridiculed her accounts, and even 
tried to persuade her that she was deceiving herself as 
well as trying to deceive them, that she saw visions 



140 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

and dreamed dreams. But Bernadette knew better ; 
she was as certain of the Virgin's visit as she was of 
her own existence, as she was of the divine command 
laid upon her to build a church. And finally her faith 
was rewarded by full belief. For the vision came to 
her at last in the presence of her mother and some 
neighbors. The child fell upon her knees, with clasped 
hands and raised eyes, her face lit up with the light 
of ecstacy. Although the attending witnesses saw 
nothing but a kneeling girl with a glorified face, they 
felt sure that the change in her must have been the 
work of a divine power. After that everything was 
plain ; belief bred belief ; credulity like a contagion 
infected almost every one it touched, and the world 
has become familiar with Bernadette's holy spring and 
its associated miracles. 

The spectacle of praying, fasting, ecstatic, exalted 
children is not rare ; nor is it rare to see them afflicted 
with various emotional derangements which one can 
trace to disturbances more or less directly attributable 
to premature religious excitement. Such efforts are, of 
course, to be deplored. But it is just as sad to see 
these irresponsible persons forced into the most solemn 
covenants, the sacredness of which they are totally un- 
able to comprehend. Even at twelve, thirteen and 
fourteen years, the age at which children are commonly 
confirmed, the imposition of obligations and the accom^ 
panying eliciting of promises that are supposed to rest 



THE PLACE OF RELIGION I4I 

upon a foundation of intelligent understanding are not, 
to say the least, a serious preparation for a useful and 
beautiful life. For no ordinary boy or girl can at such 
a time know the meaning of the ceremonies at which 
he assists, he cannot understand the foundation upon 
which they stand nor the length and breadth of them. 
He subscribes to the required formulas in much the 
same way that he would take part in the commence- 
ment exercises of his school, or in any function which 
has the surroundings of pomp and circumstance, backed 
up by the commendation of friends and relatives. 
When in later years he attains the age of fuller under- 
standing and discretion, he cannot possibly feel more 
reverently and think more highly of a system which 
extorted promises from him at a time when, swayed by 
considerations of emulation, example and obedience, he 
vowed to be and do things the meaning of which he 
knew not. Such a course, instead of making loyal and 
zealous communicants and adherents, is more apt to 
render them lukewarm and antagonistic. In place of 
open-hearted and reverential believers who feel in every 
fibre of their being the conviction and truth of their 
faith, in place of inspired adherents whose lives repre- 
sent the essential excellence of a prayer, one commonly 
sees bodies of men and women in whose allegiance to 
creed social considerations, worldly considerations, and 
reasons of inertia have an unfortunately large share. 
There is a place for a related training of children: 



142 Till'; i)i;vi:i,("»rMi;Nr ov riiK niii.n 

that of morals. That is the proper splioro in wliich 
they can normally ami healthfully bo led as well to 
their own advantage as that of the community. For 
them especially is the remark true, that conduct is 
three-fourths of life. They come u[ion the world's 
scene in a conilition of almost; neutral plasticity. They 
may have various inherited leanings and predispositions 
which, if allowed unimpeded growth, would doubtless 
turn theni in ilefinite directions. But the organization 
of family and social life does not permit unimpeded 
growth of any characteristics. The whole tendency is 
a modifying one, a tendency towards a certain common 
similarity. This tendency varies with the peculiar con- 
stitution of the child's immediate environment, so that 
we finally have the problem of a mass of more or less 
dimly inherited leanings combined with a particular set 
of surroundings — the whole of which goes to make up 
the person as he grows into adult life. One of the 
things which bring out the weak spots in the combina- 
tion is the fact of a certain indefiniteness in our moral 
life, a lack of directness and steailfastness which chil- 
dren appreciate very keenly. For they learn conduct 
in the same way as they come to know relations in 
space or the qualities of physical bodies, that is, by the 
e.xperience of unconscious absorption. Thus they real- 
ize gradually, and I may say insidiously, that there is a 
disparity between teaching in morals and conduct in 
their daily life, that ideals, which are not by any means 



Till', ri.ACK OK KMI.KMON I43 

acted oul by Ihosc who [mcIcikI to lulvocitc thcin, arc 
l)laccd before them as final. To say that we should 
}^ive our coat to him who takes our cloak is ;ill very 
well if we follow the idea to its hjf^ieal termination. 
I')Ut it falls far short of having good effect when we 
seek by every possible means to hunt down and punish 
the taker. To say that we should try by all odds to do 
unto others as we would have them do unto us is very 
fine, so long as we do not, by contrary conchict, give 
the lie to the teaching. To say that the poor, on ac- 
count of their poverty, have a better chance of salvation 
than the rich smacks strongly of virtue. But the anti- 
climax conies with crushing force when children every 
day of their lives see the people who preach the doc- 
trine bending the ready hinges of their knees before 
men of wealth that power may come with crawling. 
In short, a large part of ethical teaching is purely 
didactic, does not embody actual practice in life, and 
therefore children receive it more as they receive ab- 
stract propositions than as living facts. 

An easily apprehended reason why children's moral 
training should consist largely of applied ethics is the 
fact that they understand and assimilate concrete results 
much sooner than the theoretical rules which underlie 
them. The growth of the brain is such that the parts 
of the cerebrum which have to do with the elaboration 
of al)Stract matter is very sUjw, is about the last to 
reach fruition. One may not expect children to have 



144 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

reasonable conviction, but one may be sure that they 
will readily enough follow repeated examples. There- 
fore one must necessarily believe that all such abstract 
matter is not only absorbed with the greatest difficulty, 
but also is most easily distorted. There must be a 
constant atmosphere of the moral life which the child 
is supposed to have. From this atmosphere will come 
much better results than from any amount of teaching 
to which he may be subjected. The matter comes 
down to a question of direct responsibility of the child's 
parents and connections, for they are the patterns 
which are most closely followed, simply and plainly 
because they arc the models which childish imitative- 
ncss must surely follow. It is only necessary to re- 
member that the order of development in very young 
children is first of all the automatic ganglion centres 
of the viscera, of the heart and of the lungs ; then the 
spinal cord controlling the movement of the limbs ; 
then the centres of sensation ; and last of all, the 
centres of ideation, of thought, of will. These last- 
named centres do not reach their full development 
until from twenty-five to thirty-five years of age. Their 
action before that time is not fully reliable. And pro- 
cesses which are dependent upon them must be con- 
sequently incomplete. But the domain of conduct, 
especially in young persons, is generally not so much 
the realm of thought as of imitation and example, while 
that of religious conviction is, or should be, one of 



THE PLACE OF RELIGION I45 

thought, judgment, not a blind following of what some- 
body else has said or felt. 

As children learn conduct by direct imitation, they 
should have their models constantly before them, and 
these must be supplied by the persons who help to 
form their environment. It will not do to act in one 
way and instruct them to act in another ; to have one 
standard for oneself and quite another for them. This 
is what parents and guardians with more or less pre- 
tence regularly do. Children, with their acute, uncon- 
scious susceptibility to influence, notice the discrepancy 
with the greatest ease. And naturally they do not 
take the prescribed rules in too serious a light. They 
openly regard them either as purely theoretical and 
of little importance, or else as ideas which outwardly 
they must respect, but inwardly may with safety ignore. 
The standard of domestic virtues, of self-restraint, of 
amiability, is none too high ; by such means it is kept 
conveniently low. At the same time, the formation 
of the general character advances with an equal pace 
and is similarly retarded. Worldly wisdom, so-called, 
which too often is merely a synonym for insincerity, 
deceit, or even dishonesty, is early noticed and too 
easily assumed. In a few years so much harm is done 
that only the most strenuous exertions can undo it. 
But these are not supplied ; on the contrary, the old 
ideas are with greater force than ever insisted upon 
as essential to social and business success. 



146 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

At an early age the matter is in all likelihood made 
worse by the teaching of some one of the various creeds. 
What the child is most impressed by is the part of it 
which includes an element of mythology, or an element 
of terror, or an element of narrative interest. His 
fears as well as his faculty of enjoyment are played 
upon ; his teachers seek to lead him through the deep 
mists of superstition into the clear air of a reasonable 
and ennobling belief. How far they succeed Galton 
testifies to when he laments that what the world needs 
is not so much a greater intellectual progress as a 
better growth of character. Strangely enough, educa- 
tors feel most anxious to help along the former rather 
than the latter; and in this anxiety they have, by 
experience, discovered certain rules and laws of the 
child mind. One of them is that practical examples 
and concrete instances in a scheme of instruction come 
before the theoretical and abstract generalizations called 
rules upon which they are based. There is hardly a 
teacher of arithmetic in the land so uninformed as not 
to have heard of this idea, even if he may not use it, 
and there are almost as few who disagree with it. 
Nevertheless, a parity of reasoning in religious instruc- 
tion is clear. And, in this connection, there is an even 
greater necessity for the application. 

Applied ethics represents the concrete example ; 
creed religion may be taken as the philosophical gen- 
eralization. Such is the order in which they fall ; 



THE PLACE OF RELIGION 1 47 

and so placed, the value of both of them is un- 
doubtedly great. When a person has arrived at the 
age of independent thought, when he is past the 
time of the arbitrary support which a system of real 
morals gives, then he is fit for the more philosophical, 
more intellectual part which purely religious belief 
in its best sense ought to bring. In the meanwhile, 
parents and guardians must know that they are directly 
responsible for the ethical conduct and the moral 
status of their little ones. Their every act has its 
bearing, just as every touch of a potter's hand has 
some little share in the final result of his work. The 
constant repetition of such acts goes to make up a 
child's personality. Doubtless such repeated acts count 
for more in the long run than isolated examples of a 
virtue that may be great but is not a matter of every- 
day occurrence. The earth is devastated by a flood, 
it is strengthened and made fruitful by countless 
minute raindrops. 



CHAPTER VII 

The Value of the Child as a Witness in Suits 
AT Law 

It is a rather strange fact that courts of justice, 
whose administration is one of the most important 
functions of society, should have shown such a variety 
of opinion in regard to the right value of children's 
evidence. There are so many cases where such evi- 
dence is of the most vital importance that the need 
of settling the question once for all is undoubtedly 
great. Nevertheless, authorities on Evidence, pos- 
sibly feeling how shifty the matter is, have given it 
a wide berth. The subject has very many times 
come up for discussion, but has never been settled. 
The drift of opinion of to-day is somewhat farther 
advanced than in former times ; but the advance has 
been wavering, tentative, not based on a solid founda- 
tion of knowledge. As far back as 1779, the judges 
in R. vs. Brazier, i Leach, Cr. Cas. 199, held that 
"an infant, though under the age of seven years, 
may be sworn in a criminal prosecution, provided 
such infant appears, on strict examination by the 

148 



VALUE OF THE CHILD AS A WITNESS 1 49 

Court, to possess a sufficient knowledge of the nature 
and consequences of an oath, for there is no precise 
or fixed rule as to the time within which infants are 
excluded from giving evidence ; but their admissibil- 
ity depends upon the sense and reason they entertain 
of the danger and impiety of falsehood, which is to 
be collected from their answers to questions pro- 
pounded to them by the Court." Here the crucial 
idea is that the evidence is more or less reliable, not 
so much on account of the child's capability to see, 
think, and narrate clearly and honestly, but merely 
on the ground of having enough religious or moral 
training to appreciate the "danger and impiety of 
falsehood." 

The point is still more strongly stated in Best's work 
on Evidence (I. 241). This authority lays down the 
rule that " when a material witness in a criminal case is 
an infant of tender years, the practice has been for the 
Judge to examine him, with the view of ascertaining 
whether he is aware of the nature and obligation of an 
oath, and the consequences of perjury. And if it is 
ascertained before the trial that a material witness is of 
tender years, and devoid of religious knowledge, the 
Court will, in its discretion, po.stpone the trial, and 
direct that he shall in the meantime receive due instruc- 
tion on the subject." That this rule was not always 
followed is clear enough, for the author shortly after- 
wards cites a case, where Alberson, B., refused to post- 



150 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

pone a trial for the purpose of giving religious 
instruction to a witness of twelve years of age, since 
"all the Judges were of opinion that it was an incorrect 
proceeding ; that it was like preparing or getting up a 
witness for a particular purpose, and on that ground 
was very objectionable." Another authority. Green- 
leaf, makes a similar rule (Evidence, I. 367) : " If the 
child, being a principal witness, appears not yet suffi- 
ciently instructed in the nature of an oath, the Court 
will, in its discretion, put off the trial, that this may be 
done." This seems fairly definite, except the phrase 
"sufficiently instructed in the nature of an oath." 
Here the element of religious training comes up once 
more, and is so really misty that it is bound to cause 
disagreement. Greenleaf proves this almost immedi- 
ately after stating his rule, by citing the case of R. vs. 
Williams (7 C. and P. 320). Here he states that Patter- 
son, J., in rejecting as a witness a child of eight years 
of age, said that he "must be satisfied that the child 
felt the binding obligation of an oath from the general 
course of her religious education, and that the effect of 
the oath upon the conscience should arise from reli- 
gious feelings of a permanent nature, and not merely 
from instructions, confined to the nature of an oath, 
recently communicated for the purpose of the particu- 
lar trial." As if to show how easily such rules as 
above quoted may be overturned, the Code of Criminal 
Procedure of the State of New York, 1897, makes 



VALUE OF THE CHILD AS A WITNESS 151 

some radical changes ; it speakes of a greater age as 
necessary, and attempts to eliminate the religious fac- 
tors. "Whenever in any criminal proceedings a child 
actually or apparently under the age of twelve years, 
offered as a witness, does not, in the opinion of the 
Court or Magistrate, understand the nature of an oath, 
the evidence of such a child may be received though 
not given under oath, if, in the opinion of the Court or 
Magistrate such child is possessed of sufficient intelli- 
gence to justify the reception of the evidence." 

All through the course of these changes one can see 
the predominance of the religious idea, and until very 
late days, the usual grounds for rejecting the evidence 
of children were (i) want of religious knowledge, 
(2) want of religious belief, (3) refusal to comply with 
religious forms. Evidently jurists recognized the unre- 
liable nature of the communications, and while not 
knowing exactly where to lay the blame, nevertheless 
tried to erect some sort of barrier to limit the evil. 
This is one reason why so many contradictions in rul- 
ings, of which there is a wealth, exist. For instance, 
in the case of R. vs. Holmes, quoted in Taylor's Evi- 
dence, the presiding magistrate considered a certain 
child competent to testify, because she told the Judge 
that she said her prayers, and thought it wrong to lie. 
On the other hand, Wharton quotes a case of a girl 
three years older, whose testimony was rejected because 
she knew nothing of future rewards and punishments. 



152 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

The strangest part of the subject — for as a rule the law 
does not lack for safeguards against most of its enact- 
ments — is that no serious attempts have been made to 
find out why and how far this sort of evidence is not 
trustworthy ; and if this had been done, there would be 
no need for citing such well-known cases as that of Dr. 
Laurent, where a boy of thirteen years accused his 
father and twelve other men of a murder which they 
clearly did not commit ; nor such a case as was recently 
reported in the daily press, where, in a suit for divorce, 
two little sisters gave diametrically opposite accounts of 
the domestic relations of their parents, although the 
only active cause for an utter disagreement in testi- 
mony was a difference in sympathies. The father's 
partisan saw the mother's acts in an unfavorable light, 
while the account of the other child entirely reversed 
the relations of praise and blame. Still, there is no 
reason to doubt the little ones' honest wish to tell the 
truth. The trouble lay not in their intentions, but 
rather in their particular manner of judging. This last- 
mentioned case, instead of being remarkable, is really 
what one ought to expect, because a truthful and faith- 
ful narration of events or a condition is no easy matter, 
even for many adults ; for a child it is exceedingly 
difficult, and in many cases impossible. 

There are many reasons, looking to the mental 
and physical condition of the child, why this is so. 
As was seen in the first chapter, the development of 



VALUE OF THE CHILD AS A WITNESS 1 53 

the brain is very slow, and even after its gross form 
develops, a long time must elapse before the finer 
structure becomes complete. It is by this finer struc- 
ture that its highest work is done. This applies es- 
pecially to the intermediate regions in the cortex, 
called the association centres, where the various func- 
tional areas meet, and where the characteristic mem- 
ories are stored up. So long as these centres are 
unripe, and they certainly are in such condition until 
puberty at least, the ordinary impressions do not 
become sufficiently marked, nor can they be fully 
recognized and expressed by the child. It is much 
on the plan of a series or network of communicating 
canals. If the trenches are completed only in sepa- 
rate spots, no steady stream of water can flow 
through them, and no matter how well the work in 
these various areas has been done, the full results of 
the undertaking do not come into existence until 
every connection is finished. 

One constantly sees proof of this in the child's 
clumsiness, which is apparent in mind as well as in 
body. It is only after months of trying that he is 
able to use knife and fork gracefully and efficiently ; 
it is only after years of effort that he is able to write 
readily, to perform many of the most ordinary acts 
of life. One expects this, and so one does not notice 
it. One does not stop to think that what he does 
well is what does not require a careful self-conscious- 



154 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

ness or concentration. Moreover, he is helped by his 
ignorance ; he cannot fear that of which he knows 
naught. Fear does not make him cautious, and 
therefore correspondingly incompetent. His success- 
ful efforts are first confined to the purely somatic 
functions and physical acts; after them, by a long 
distance, comes intelligent mental effort. 

Now a word is a more or less complex idea com- 
posed of more than one sort of image. The simplest 
word has a host of associations which require for 
their proper tabulation considerable time and experi- 
ence. As an example, take the word milk. This will 
bring to mind the ideas of fluidity, of food, of the 
bottle from which the child has taken it, of color, of 
cows, of farm life, of wagons, and horses, and so on 
to an indefinite extent. Other words are similarly 
multiple in their concepts and suggest many diverse 
images. In an immature condition, where the effects 
of experience and practice are small, it is difficult to 
keep these various concepts in their proper relations. 
Like a wagon wheel slipping into a rut the mental 
impulse deviates from its path. Consequently any 
certain impressions may be distorted to widely re- 
moved conclusions. So long as there is not a direct 
connection between a concept and its rightful expres- 
sion, no serious reliance should be placed upon the 
person's testimony. This is exactly the condition of 
children. The difficulty of learning each separate 



VALUE OF THE CHILD AS A WITNESS 1 55 

word is really great, but after this is done, the task 
of learning simple combinations still remains, and as 
the child grows older, the necessity for increasing his 
vocabulary advances at a greater rate. The acquisi- 
tion of this knowledge comes in a slow and fragmen- 
tary manner. For a long time it resembles a sort 
of patchwork, and not until after the lapse of years 
does it become homogeneous. During all this time 
not only are the child's concepts imperfectly formed, 
but also his expressions of them must be still more 
imperfect. This is so true that unconsciously one 
acts upon it, and is much astonished if a child ex- 
presses himself well and clearly, while on the other 
hand, one is amused and tolerant of grotesque expres- 
sions. In fact, most of the quaint and witty sayings 
of childhood are never intended as such, and the laugh 
which they provoke is as astonishing to the little one 
as the remark in question is to the auditor. They 
should be regarded merely as tentative efforts after 
ordinary expression, and the humorous part results 
from the child's misapprehension of normal relations. 
Proofs of the truth of this we meet every day, and 
an occurrence in my own experience is a case in point. 
I was walking one day with a little girl, past an oyster 
restaurant, on the window of which was displayed the 
sign, " Families supplied," The meaning to an adult 
is, of course, perfectly plain ; but with the child it 
was quite different. Immediately after reading it, she 



156 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

clapped her hands, and cried out : " O ! let's go in and 
get a little baby. I've wanted a baby brother for a 
long time." Again, another case is one quoted by 
Principal Russell. It was a case of a boy of ten years 
who thought that when a person boarded with another, 
he went to the latter's house, and pounded with his 
fists on the wall of a room. Another child of nearly 
eight years of age, wrote his name with the title " mas- 
ter" before it. On being asked the meaning of the 
prefix, he said, " That's because I'm master of some- 
thing, — my dog." It must be remembered that these 
are not extreme cases, but rather such as happen every 
day. They show how very crudely children express 
themselves ; how far away from having and expressing 
an exact idea they are. Now, if so much difficulty 
opposes them in single words, how much more burden- 
some must be the obstacles in trying to give a sus- 
tained and truthful narrative! The task is greater 
than one ought to expect of these little people. 

If this were the only trouble, it would be great 
enough, but it is only one of many. The most ordi- 
nary things, as well as the most unusual, lead to 
misconceptions that may give rise to totally false in- 
terpretations. The child is thus in danger of extract- 
ing a meaning from conversations or events that is not 
at all justified by the circumstances. His report of 
such things is correspondingly distorted. I remember 
showing a boy how to look through a microscope, and 



VALUE OF THE CHILD AS A WITNESS 1 5/ 

drew his attention to a budding yeast plant that was 
fixed on the sHde. Some fancied resemblance caught 
his eye, and later on I was astounded at hearing him 
tell his father that he had seen a little bit of a goat 
through the instrument. The child was far from wish- 
ing to deceive ; he was simply misled by an imper- 
fect understanding of things, which could never have 
occurred to an adult, even to one who knew nothing 
about the yeast plant. 

One of the hardest things for children is to concen- 
trate their thoughts and attention. They are easily 
distracted from any matter in hand, and besides, com- 
monly observe things very inaccurately. Like the flit- 
ting of wind-blown leaves, their thoughts and glances 
swing this way and that, resting for a short time, and 
very lightly, on many unconnected places. The infer- 
ences which they naturally draw must therefore be 
false. Things widely diverse in their constitution, but 
having some trivial thing in common, will appear to 
their unobserving eyes as similar ; and, for instance, 
they would claim decidedly to identify a man simply 
because some easily marked characteristic, such as 
baldness, struck them as familiar. Here one can 
plainly see the characteristic workings of poorly con- 
nected association centres. For related reasons they 
observe things poorly, and though they look with seem- 
ingly sufficient intentness, nevertheless, they do not 
see enough. Their reasoning consequently is faulty, 



158 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

and they ascribe causes to phenomena that strike us 
in commonplace circumstances as ludicrous. Thus a 
boy of ten and one-half years, gravely explaining why 
dogs kept their mouths open, said that it was due to 
hunger, and that in this way the animal was most 
ready to snatch up a bit of food ; and another child 
of ten years announced that all small teachers were 
cross, while tall teachers were good-natured. He had 
drawn this general conclusion and opinion from his 
experience with two young women, who formerly had 
taught him. In the particular connection quoted, 
these methods of forming conclusions are of little 
importance ; but when they are translated into serious 
evidence, which is bound to affect other people's inter- 
ests, they open the way to great misconception and 
injustice. 

Going back once more to the unripe condition which 
is characteristic of the youthful brain, one finds such 
things perfectly natural. The various constituent ele- 
ments of the adult nervous system are present, but in 
such an undeveloped state that to expect complete 
responses to demands made upon it, would be just as 
unreasonable as endeavoring to pay off a large indebt- 
edness with a small capital. When ganglion cells are 
only partially formed, when their prolongations exist 
merely in a rudimentary form, when their histological 
elements are in part lacking, it is absolutely necessary 
to conclude that functional activity is likewise affected. 



VALUE OF THE CHILD AS A WITNESS 1 59 

Thus the idea that children naturally tell the truth 
is in itself far from true. To say that " children and 
fools don't lie" merely means that they have not so 
many of the ulterior reasons for deceit that actuate 
adults. As a matter of fact, it is natural for them 
spontaneously to tell untruths. In addition to their 
physical limitations, they have deficiencies in experi- 
ence that are dangerous to seeing and telling things 
correctly. The difificulties of ordinary sight are over- 
come very gradually and after years of trial. One can 
appreciate this easily enough when one thinks of the 
obstacles in the way of ordinary or upright vision. 
The human eye is constructed on the principle of a 
compound lens, and the resulting vision is projected 
upon the retina inverted. A person looking at a 
chair really sees it upside-down, and the time which 
is necessary to learn the association of an upright 
position and an inverted image is undoubtedly great. 
The process is so elaborate that one, thinking about 
the matter, is surprised at the uniformly fair results 
that adults attain. The experience comes slowly, and 
as the result of countless movements of touching, lift- 
ing and moving. The partly developed brain does 
not act logically, and has to learn as if by rote the 
most ordinary facts in nature. Little by little such 
facts are assimilated, little by little the child emerges 
from the mists which envelop his early faculties. 
Only in the most gradual way does he come to asso- 



l6o THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

ciate the visual impression with the proper relations 
of the object in space. This difficulty, added to his 
limited power of accurate observation, is bound to 
make his reports unreliable. This disability is in- 
creased by the trouble which he inevitably encounters 
in understanding the third dimension. For a long 
time, he practically does not know of its existence, 
and even when he learns something about it, he uses 
the knowledge very crudely. The existing lack of 
perspective shows itself in his attempts at drawing, 
for, outside of any technical knowledge, he is unable, 
even at a rather mature age, to see the difference 
between flat lines and those drawn in projection. 

Growing knowledge of size and position brings its 
penalties ; he measures things by his own small stand- 
ard, not by the adult. Things seem great, even for- 
midable to him ; his imagination is deeply impressed. 
The idea of formidable size easily changes into that 
of the grotesque, — especially in a mind that is igno- 
rant of the true connection between cause and effect. 
That is one of the reasons why our little ones so 
readily incline to a belief in ogres, giants and mon- 
strous forms. In addition, this quality falls very con- 
genially into place beside that of irresponsibility. 
The child delights in what to us is unreal, in " make 
believe." The flights of fancy conjure up other and 
strange worlds, which are as real to him as the world 
about him, where things are topsy-turvy. Here events 



VALUE OF THE CHILD AS A WITNESS l6l 

come in strange and wonderful ways ; the little one 
becomes a hero or a victim ; he encounters experi- 
ences the half of which is beyond all fact. For him 
there is no hard and fast limit ; there is no end to 
what is possible. The fears of a mythical dragon 
oppress him just as much as a real danger; and ordi- 
nary things inspire the same emotions as the grossest 
figments of the imagination. A dream, a story, or a 
vision started by some fugitive train of thought is as 
apt to induce a steadfast belief, to which he will hold 
with the fullest force of conviction, as a real series 
of actual happenings will cause in an adult. I know 
of tales of severe punishment or ill-treatment, reported 
in this way by school-children at the hands of teachers, 
which investigation proved to be utterly without foun- 
dation. And I remember accounts of pursuits by 
wolves, bears and griffins, which were reputed to have 
occurred in the streets of New York, told to me with 
all the force of righteous conviction. Questioning, 
without an emphatic statement of disbelief, is apt to 
confirm these opinions, with the result that a child 
who is supposed to be all purity, guilelessness and 
truth, may accomplish the ends of a hardened per- 
jurer. But so easily is his mind influenced, that ex- 
pressed doubt or disapprobation will make him utterly 
repudiate the whole story. 

A characteristic quality of childhood that is capable 
of causing much mischief is its vanity. The child 

M 



l62 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

regularly imagines himself as the doer of great and 
impossible deeds, as the holder — according to his 
lights — of important functions. He knows nothing 
of the necessity of effort, of striving ; he associates 
the desire for a thing with the immediate fruition 
of that desire. His treatment at home during his 
very young childhood helps to strengthen the ten- 
dency. His experiences, all the way from being con- 
stantly called a "big man," to hearing outlandish 
tales, are regularly of this sort. Very rarely does one 
see an effort made to develop a sense of proportion. 
Parents and attendants feel satisfied if by cajolery and 
by flattery the child makes only a bearable amount of 
trouble. They know that by such means they can 
hold his attention and keep him quiet, although they 
are thereby far from improving his moral condition. 
A certain amount of vanity is natural to every one ; 
and at times we find this ordinary amount largely 
increased in occasional persons, who should be regarded 
as illustrations of the persistence of youthful types. 
Thus one hears of women who bind and maltreat 
themselves, of girls who write love-letters to them- 
selves, and thereon base a story of a fortunate en- 
gagement to marry ; in the same way, and with as 
little basis in fact, children will at times recount with 
every show of truth tales of happiness or unhappiness, 
of kindness or abuse. Here again they may have no 
intention to make others bear the responsibility of 



VALUE OF THE CHILD AS A WirNESS 163 

fancied deeds ; they merely feel the need of satisfy- 
ing their vanity, of calling attention to themselves, 
of being pitied and petted. When brought into a 
Court of Law, such traits are capable of working un- 
told harm — even of wrecking innocent lives. 

Everybody is familiar with the imitative faculty in 
children; every one knows that they follow closely after 
examples which they see before them. Practically, we 
know that this is a fact, and theoretically, it is as it 
should be. All young creatures must be imitative in 
order to live, and no one would expect that this fac- 
ulty would stop short at any exact and designated 
limits of safety. As a matter of fact, there is an 
active tendency to ape the ways and manners of those 
about them, as well as to be more or less impressed 
by a startling occurrence. In this way I have seen 
a girl of twelve years counterfeit exactly all the symp- 
toms which her sister showed in an attack of hip- 
disease; moreover, I was not certain of the counterfeit 
nature of her condition until the administration of an 
anaesthetic, after which no deception was possible. In 
the small things of life the force of this faculty is con- 
stantly felt, so much so that it affects the most funda- 
mental habits. The ideas of the growing child are 
surely thus regulated, so much indeed, that one can hardly 
speak of his having an independent mental life at all. 
He takes his tone from his environment just as surely 
as he acquires his speech and manner of expression. 



164 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

To a large extent his mind is a blank, an untilled 
field, and the impressions made upon it are the means 
of cultivation. In so far as he is developed at all is 
he thus influenced. Therefore he is being moulded 
every day and every hour ; but most of all is he af- 
fected when some important event happens which 
makes him incline in whatever way the sympathies 
and interests of those about him dictate. As a re- 
sult, quite outside of the question of honest intentions, 
his view-point is not shaped so much by the actual 
course of events as by the interpretation which those 
nearest to him put upon them. 

That element in making evidence trustworthy, the 
realization of the nature and obligation of an oath, is 
one of the most difficult to make sure of in a child's 
testimony. Lawyers have insisted upon exacting this 
without knowing positively whether the child were 
capable of it. Whenever in the conduct of a cause a 
doubt arose, it was in relation to the one particular 
case at issue rather than to the whole body of cases. 
In the same way, some question may have arisen con- 
cerning the religious training of the one child on the 
stand rather than of all children in general ; and an 
unfortunate feature of the matter is, that attorneys, 
in trying to have a child's evidence admitted or re- 
jected, are apt to base their arguments, not on some 
principle of impartial truth, but merely on considera- 
tions of the client's interest. But without doubt 



VALUE OF THE CHILD AS A WITNESS 1 65 

some idea of the fallibility of this element has been 
prevalent in the general legal mind, for almost all 
cases in point have brought out objections from one 
side or the other against the testimony of such wit- 
nesses. What is needed is a full and definite know- 
ledge of the reasons why a child is unable reliably to 
fulfil all the important duties of a witness. To real- 
ize the nature and obligation of an oath requires more 
than an understanding of certain religious forms, or 
even of religious ideas. Such ideas, as was shown in 
the last chapter (Chapter VI.), exist as a mood, as a 
more or less artificial condition. The binding formula 
of swearing a very youthful witness cannot be any 
greater than — even if it is as great as — an ordinary 
injunction against lying. For one cannot expect him 
to be held by reasons which are beyond him. His idea 
of the Deity is decidedly anthropomorphic ; to him 
God is a big man, with all the weaknesses and passions 
of mortals. The pure, abstract idea of divinity is far 
and away from him. He feels the assurance of divine 
care for the world and interest in him only on the 
plan that he regards the affection of his father, but 
with one great distinction ; requiring a tangible method 
of appeal to his senses, he understands and appreciates 
in a partial sense his parent's interest and authority, 
whereas he sees, feels, and knows nothing about a God, 
excepting what people have told him. The all-impor- 
tant elements of appeal to his comfort, his physical 



l66 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

well-being, are immeasurably stronger in the case of 
his parent than his God. His greatest respect for 
the latter is apt to be founded upon a blind fear, the 
dread of a promised punishment. Naturally, it is un- 
necessary to say, obedience founded upon such mo- 
tives is very easily distorted, so that he most easily 
responds in the way that he believes will be most 
pleasing. 

The sanctity of an oath represents one of the 
highest developments of civilized life. It involves the 
sacrifice of personal bias, of personal welfare, of per- 
sonal relations — the very things which go to make 
up the child's little life. It calls for a foundation of 
principle, of which children are naturally ignorant, and 
an elimination of expediency, which is commonly the 
governing factor with them. Likewise it presupposes 
a sufficiently wide experience, a sufficiently broad 
training in conduct, so that a partial knowledge at 
least of what justice means may result. A person 
who, from his position, cannot have a proper respect 
for consequences, is, when so placed that he may by 
his irresponsible words sway the outcome of impor- 
tant causes, a positive menace to particular and general 
interests. This is the position of the child-witness ; 
for his experience has been so circumscribed, so 
closely restricted to his own physical needs, pleasures 
and gratifications, and the bent of his mind calls so 
clearly for tangible evidences and reasons for things. 



VALUE OF THE CHILD AS A WITNESS 1 67 

that he is the last one to feel the influence of purely 
abstract considerations. 

Another fact which one must keep in mind is, that 
the child knows nothing and cares nothing about the 
public tone. The ordinary man knows and appreciates 
the value of public morality and right dealing, he has 
a pride in the high standard of the community's acts. 
He is aware of the part he must play in order to main- 
tain this standard, and that the resulting praise or 
blame affects him as well as his fellow-citizens. He 
knows that there is no such thing as private virtue 
and public vice, and therefore, he has a distinct reason 
to hold on to what is good for the state, and to discard 
what is bad. But a child is absolutely ignorant of all 
this. So far as he is concerned, the community does 
not exist, its welfare is nothing, its aims and ends for 
him are nothing. He looks merely for the approbation 
of parents and guardians, for they constitute his little 
world. Any authority outside of them is merely a 
force with which to frighten or coerce him. The 
sentiment of patriotism, when it exists in him at all, 
is merely a reflection from the light which shines 
from some of his connections. In himself he is plain 
darkness, to whom the light comes in feeble and un- 
certain rays. His position of neutral dependence 
requires an unquestioning willingness to follow in an 
indicated path, no matter where it may lead. If it 
tend in the direction of the public elevation, well and 



1 68 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

good ; but if it stretch out in the opposite direction, 
he treads it as willingly. He rightfully has no part 
in any public function, except a decorative part, and 
the narrow scope of his whole life makes certain a 
like narrowness of ideals. 

Outside of these somewhat theoretical reasons, there 
are certain physical conditions found in childhood, 
which so easily become pathological that abnormal 
mental action results. In the first place, the intes- 
tinal tract does its work of digestion and assimilation 
when its contents are relatively quite or nearly aseptic ; 
as soon as there is a slight excess of fermentation or 
putrefaction, pathological manifestations result. These 
conditions one should regard as mild but true cases 
of real poisoning, with characteristic mental as well 
as physical symptoms. If a child were made sick by 
some familiar poison, no one would for a moment think 
of placing reliance upon the disordered thoughts and 
expressions that resulted from the pathological effects 
of the intoxication. Children are peculiarly susceptible 
to these effects, and respond to them very strongly, 
partly because of their slight power of resistance, and 
partly because the false mental actions which they 
induce seem just as reasonable to their inexperienced 
judgments as the ordinary facts of life. The slighter 
cases of poisoning caused by intestinal disorders act 
in the same way, and with as much certainty. Thus 
a child suffering from these disorders, absorbing poi- 



VALUE OF THE CHILD AS A WITNESS 1 69 

sonous products of fermentation, will see or hear or 
feel or dream of things and actions which he may 
honestly translate into terms of actual experience. 
He may be as sure of this as of any reality, and still 
the whole matter may have no greater foundation 
than the undigested starch in a banana which he ate 
between meals. The various chemical processes of 
assimilation, which easily fall into disorder, may act 
as irritants either in the way of repressing normal 
impulses, or exaggerating sensory impressions. There 
is really no limit where this process may end, nor do 
we know the fixed point where it must begin. At all 
events, we do know that the chemical reactions in 
assimilation are exceedingly complex ; that they are 
easily interfered with ; that the resulting products 
and by-products are very diverse, and in some instances 
poisonous. In this way the relation of concepts may 
be broken, and the consequent mental impressions 
may even go so far as to assume the dignity of full 
illusions. 

Sometimes the ordinary methods of teaching, of 
learning by rote, are at fault. These act in the way 
of subjecting the nervous system to a strain which 
it is poorly prepared to stand. Its normal sphere of 
activity lies in acquiring new impressions that should 
vary so regularly as to avoid the danger of monotony. 
Impressions that are repeated too often bring about 
a morbid, nervous condition that has been called "psy- 



I/O THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

chical trauma." If such a condition exists, it may 
debase intellectual powers to much below their right- 
ful standard. Outside of distinct mental disorders, 
classified as diseases, some of the lower emotional 
and mental activities may in a similar way be markedly 
injured. One has evidence of this from such signs 
as nervous digestive disorders, hysterical attacks, loss 
of sleep, otherwise inexplicable, disturbances of flush- 
ing and pallor, loss or impairment of reflexes. One 
sees these manifestations every day, and the task of 
connecting them with impaired intellectual activity is 
not hard. The tender nerve cells have no large 
amount of reserve energy, and what they possess is 
easily exhausted. Monotonous strain, instead of giv- 
ing them the strength which comes from exercise, wears 
them out and debases their functions. Its action is just 
as sure and just as harmful as certain sorts of punish- 
ment, of falls and blows on the head, as morbid changes 
in the viscera and muscles. The result is that the 
child's mind and senses do not work clearly and in 
unison ; his power of observation and right inference 
is dulled. This power is naturally of the greatest 
value, and when it does not exist in normally large 
amount, the results of its exercise are far from re- 
liable. 

There are other conditions which militate against 
the child in his efforts to understand and report what 
goes on about him. Among these are certain diseases 



VALUE OF THE CHILD AS A WITNESS 171 

of the eye, phenomena which occur in the end dis- 
tribution of the optic nerve, among which are the light 
phenomena developed in the retina, the so-called light 
dust of the internal field of vision, shadowings and 
polychrome pictures. Moreover, these are conditions 
for which the adult, in ordinary sight, makes allow- 
ances, and so escapes deceit. But the child is easily 
enough led astray by processes in the retinal vessels, 
such as those involving the movements of the blood 
corpuscles, and pulsations of the central artery. Of 
course it is easy to understand the limitations attend- 
ing opacities of the cornea and vitreous and all con- 
ditions producing entoptic shadows on the retina. 
But there are many other pathological conditions, for 
instance, such as catarrhs and irritations of the middle 
ear and irritations of the mucous membranes of the 
face and head, which, although not so direct, are just 
as potent to divert the course between impressions 
and their consequent expressions. One must dis- 
tinctly keep in mind that this course is not necessarily 
direct, that an immature condition is the one best 
fitted to allow eccentric action, and that in order to 
obtain a true correspondence between concept and 
rightful expression, not only must the natural facul- 
ties be ordinarily well guarded and nourished, but also 
a certain fairly large amount of experience and practice 
is really essential. When this does not exist, one is 
very apt to find a disturbance of conception produced 



1/2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

locally in the cortex of the brain, by which the child 
is unable to distinguish between the internal processes 
and their external conditions. If the ability to differ- 
entiate is impaired, an hallucination is present, de- 
pendent upon processes in those parts of the brain 
which preserve memory pictures of the most varied 
kinds. 

One must distinctly keep in mind that such dis- 
orders, and others like them, are peculiarly apt to 
happen to children. The youthful organization, by 
the very fact of its immaturity, its unripe and unset- 
tled conditions, invites them. Things which would 
affect an adult only slightly react upon a child in a 
startlingly acute and active manner. In a man a 
slight disturbance of the circulatory apparatus in the 
eye would, in all likelihood, be promptly recognized 
and discounted. In a child the false subjective impres- 
sions thus created would be regarded as real facts of 
objective importance. He could have no possibility 
or grounds of discrimination, and the opinions which 
would thus arise would naturally seem to him orderly 
and right. In the same way, any abnormal condition 
giving rise to abnormal sense-impressions or interrup- 
tions of normal connections in thought must make the 
child feel, see, and think things that are false. It is not 
hard to show that the consequences may be very seri- 
ous. The main thing to keep in mind is that no ordi- 
nary child is a fit means to record and express accurate 



VALUIO OF THE CHILD AS A WITNESS 1 73 

and truthful ideas. His main part in life is prepara- 
tory, constructive. He is being built up into a later 
creation that we call the adult. To measure him and 
his efforts by the standard of maturity is, speaking 
mildly, unwise. To put him in the responsible posi- 
tion of an adult is like placing a premium on mis- 
carriages of justice. 

The special environment which the child needs in 
his physical life has its analogue in the particular cir- 
cumstances with which his mental life should be 
guarded. When the community gives him a greater 
responsibility than he is rightfully able to assume, 
it opens the door to disaster. The only safeguard 
that can effectually preserve the common interests is 
the withdrawal of such evidence from courts of law 
as a well-informed man must, a priori, doubt. The 
easiest solution of the matter would be to find some 
approximate age at which human beings are fairly 
close to a permanent standard which is in general 
reliable. At a glance one can see that nature has 
followed some such method, and has marked out the 
period which we call puberty as the boundary line. 
This demarcation would, of course, be not exact ; but, 
at all events, it would be a nearer approach to a safe 
and conservative rule than any which we now have. 
In reality, there is at present no rule at all. Judges 
and lawyers vary according to the run of cases, by 
a sort of common sense, by a rule of thumb procedure. 



174 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

Evidence that suits one is quite unsatisfactory to 
another, and both may be equally ignorant of real, 
scientific grounds for the acceptance or rejection of 
the testimony in question. The interest of all con- 
cerned lies in wiping out sources of permanent error. 



CHAPTER VIII 

The Development of the Child-Criminal 

It has been truly said that every community has 
the government which it deserves ; that it has the 
prevalence of order as far as its deserts go ; and 
as truly one may say that every community has the 
juvenile criminals that it deserves, and deserves the 
juvenile criminals that prey upon it. For, in this 
respect, as in every other, there is no condition in a 
state that is caused by purely extraneous reasons. 
Such as it is, whether good or bad, it makes its own 
salvation. By its own constitution it is to be praised 
or blamed. In so far as it is worthy of triumphing 
over obstacles does it seek to find the reason for 
them, and with this quest comes the final solution. 
Thus problem after problem has been attacked, and 
the resulting triumphs have come after much strug- 
gling, much controversy, much seeking. The fights 
against slavery, against the oldtime habits of drink- 
ing, against the former methods in prison adminis- 
tration, have been long and bitter. Many a man has 
sought the truth in them, and has received misfortune, 

175 



1/6 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

or even death, for his pains. But the world needed 
improvement, and deserved improvement, and a bet- 
ter condition came. 

A somewhat analogous phase of development one may 
see in relation to the causation and treatment of the 
child-criminal. There is in the dim public mind an 
idea that we have not reached final conclusions in the 
matter; in fact, the subject of criminology, philosophi- 
cally considered, is a comparatively new one. Some 
of the best minds have been working upon it, and 
even general attention has regarded it with the great- 
est interest. Each man who in the matter has shown 
ability, strengthened by thought and experience, has 
his special following of adherents, each of whom strives 
to bring a stone to help in building up the edifice 
begun by the master. 

And the great number of varying ideas shows how 
far we are from a settlement of the case. Thus, 
Lombroso, one of the pioneers in criminology, has 
given a large place to the atavistic theory, that the 
criminal is a distinct type, that his special character- 
istics of mind and body come to him by the royal 
road of heredity. Dr. von Holder believes that ex- 
ample and poverty and lying are principal courses of 
crime. Garofalo disagrees, saying that criminal types 
are well fixed and constant, that '* recidivation of the 
criminal is the rule, reformation the exception." 
What is more, perversity is a natural condition ; in 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD-CRIMINAL 1 77 

his mind education, religious and economic conditions 
are naught. Dr. Baer lays the blame in great part 
to the abuse of alcohol, and concludes that without 
such excesses the world would be immeasurably 
better. Richter, on the contrary, cries that alco- 
holics are light offenders ; that serious crime is the 
result of epilepsy, of nervous irritations working in 
a fairly well known, but wrongly classified category. 
Prosper Despine lays greatest stress upon " moral 
blindness " ; that cure is to come by moral elevation, 
not by prisons. Beranger supports him by the opin- 
ion that confirmed criminals are the effect of prisons, 
and is backed up by Dr. Laurent, who believes in 
the present system, but even more in its future devel- 
opment. Marimo and Gambara trace some connec- 
tion between Wormian bones and vicious traits, but 
Corre finds nothing anatomically peculiar to criminals. 
Wines lays least stress upon theory, and cares least 
for it, claiming that " the principal hope of any mate- 
rial reduction in the volume of crime lies in its pre- 
vention rather than its cure." 

At all events, we know that crime, although its 
cause is obscure, is a very present reality, and also, 
that on the whole it is increasing. Moreover, it is 
not hard to see that the relation between crime in 
general and juvenile crime is a constant one. They 
rise and fall together, and similar causes act in both 
for their development or repression. Factors of gen- 

N 



178 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CIHLD 

eral life have the same effect upon both, and in addi- 
tion, example and juxtaposition enable the old to lead 
the young. Therefore, when we say that practically 
no progress, by and large, has been made in diminish- 
ing the volume of crime, it is much the same as if we 
omit the word crhne, and in its place substitute the 
phrase juvenile crime. Thus, in searching for a final 
reason in this matter, we may know that the two 
terms are interchangeable, and argument becomes 
much simpler. 

Among other things, one is able to exclude from 
the aetiology certain factors which have often been 
blamed as the root of the evil. For instance, many 
people believe that a deficient education has the greatest 
tendency to brutalize and debase ; that if intellectual 
enlightenment were more wisely spread, wrong-doing 
would of necessity shrink away. So common is this 
belief that anti-social acts committed by an ignorant 
man are often partially excused on the score of his 
ignorance, while equal wrong in an educated man is 
looked upon as showing far greater depravity, because 
he must have been sufficiently well instructed to know 
the nature of his acts. This may seem plausible 
enough, but it is far from being true. There is no 
inevitable relation between intellectual training and 
moral obliquity. The criminal is a criminal exactly 
the same whether he is stupid or instructed, the only 
difference being that in the latter case he is the more 



DEVELOPMENT OP THE CHILD-CRIMINAL 179 

dangerous, on account of greater mental training. 
Moreover, there is no limit in education beyond which 
crime is impossible. On the other hand, one con- 
stantly finds instances of persons who, having received 
the benefits of good, or even the best, educational train- 
ing, are nevertheless unable to act in an honest and 
upright manner. Besides this, one sees every day 
cases of wrong-doing committed by people whose intel- 
lectual advantages have been such that they, while pos- 
sessing the ability to cloak the viciousness of their 
deeds, are able to act in an essentially criminal way. 
And it is only by means of their intellectual advan- 
tages that they continue with impunity so to act. This 
view, if one looks at the rather meagre statistics on 
the subject, is fully sustained. Those of Dr. Ogle 
are in point. In speaking of them he says : " Eighty- 
five per cent of the population were able to read and 
write in the years 1881-84, and as this represents an 
increase of ten per cent since the passing of the Ele- 
mentary Education Act, it is probably not far from the 
mark to say that at the present time almost ninety per 
cent of the English population can read and write. 
In other words, only ten per cent of the population is 
wholly ignorant." This high percentage in instruc- 
tion characterized a period that suffered from a large 
increase in crime, although the general relation be- 
tween the two phenomena was not essentially dif- 
ferent from that of other times. With the growth of 



l8o THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

statistical knowledge the truth of this is seen to have 
a wider and wider application. 

Destitution, it is often said, is at the bottom of much 
of the crime in the world ; that evil-doers are such 
because want crowds them out of the straight path of 
rectitude ; that when poverty, with its sodden wings, 
overshadows a man, the light of truth and righteous- 
ness is shut out, and he becomes, to all intents and 
purposes, morally blind. This sounds very well when 
used, as it commonly is, to fill out begging letters. But 
as a matter of fact, it has not very much truth in it. 
Indeed, one finds, on examination, that the evidence 
is all the other way. Before looking at the testimony, 
one would naturally think that men who were oppressed 
by heavy burdens would be the most liable to law- 
breaking, that by sheer force of desperation they would 
do anything to provide for the wants of to-day. Also, 
one would suppose that times of profound destitution 
would be most deeply marked with crime. The sur- 
prising thing is that both of these suppositions are 
false. One finds criminals, as a rule, to be those per- 
sons who have almost no responsible burdens, who in 
this respect are freest of all to use whatever faculties 
they may possess to the best advantage ; and what is 
stranger still, one can easily ascertain that times of 
prosperity show the greatest flourishing of crime. 
Therefore, Morrison, a reliable writer, says : " It is a 
melancholy fact that the moment wages begin to rise, 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD-CRIMINAL l8l 

the statistics of crime almost immediately follow suit, 
and at no period are there more offences of all kinds 
against the person than when prosperity is at its 
height." In another place one reads : " It is found 
that the stress of economic conditions has very little 
to do with making these unhappy beings what they 
are ; on the contrary, it is in periods of prosperity that 
they sink to the lowest depths." It is easy to collect 
such opinions, opinions which carry all the weight of 
authority with them. For the deeper investigators dig, 
and the nearer they come to the truth, the more clearly 
do their results agree. Therefore, one is prepared for 
a still later and very recent utterance which says : 
"When we begin to compare the distribution of pauper- 
ism with the distribution of crime, both juvenile and 
adult, it immediately becomes manifest that as a rule 
there is least pauperism where there is most crime, 
and of course least crime where there is most pauper- 
ism." 

Many a man who has the interests of society close at 
heart may say that if ignorance is not the cause, if 
destitution is not the cause, then we have not far to 
search, for in drunkenness, which is ever with us, we 
have a reason whose validity is sure and certain. This 
seems very plausible, for the vicious and stupefying 
effects of the abuse of alcohol every one constantly 
witnesses. We so regularly see fortunes wrecked, 
careers blighted, men and women dragged down to the 



1 82 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

lowest depths by this vice, that it comes to represent 
everything bad. It is only a step farther to the con- 
clusions that criminal impulses and acts must follow as 
the rightful sequel of it. This conclusion, while it flat- 
ters our sentimental side, is not based upon fact, and 
while the effects of inebriety are undoubtedly very bad, 
nevertheless, the causation of crime is not one of them. 
The real reason must lie somewhere else, as a study 
of statistical returns shows. We know that men in 
certain years of their life, between the ages of thirty 
and forty, are more hable than at any other time to 
become drunkards. Also, we know that at this time 
they are not most addicted to crime for which they may 
be indicted. We know that youths from sixteen to 
twenty-one years of age are most liable to commit such 
crimes, but on the other hand, they are not nearly so 
apt to be drunkards. When we come to juveniles 
less than sixteen years old, who may not in any way 
be said to be addicted to intoxication, we find that 
they produce indictable criminals in the proportion 
of two and sixty-one hundredths to every one thousand 
of the population of a similar age. 

Compare this with the fact that among the older 
population of from thirty to forty years the proportion 
of indictable criminals is only two to one thousand. 
The conclusion is somewhat startling to preconceived 
ideas, but not more so than another comparison that 
is easily made. Men between thirty and forty years 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD-CRIMINAL 1 83 

of age, as was said above, are much more liable to 
indulge in intoxicating excesses than at earlier periods 
of life ; to put the matter more exactly, they are 
seven times more liable than at the period of life 
between sixteen and twenty-one years. On the other 
hand, in this latter period indictable crime is much 
more frequent, and, indeed, is more frequent than at 
any other time of life. Between these latter years 
there are three and three tenths convictions per annum 
for indictable crimes for every one thousand of the 
population. While at the age in which drunkenness 
is most found, there are only two and two tenths to 
an equal number. The difference of fifty per cent 
cannot be explained away so long as we hold to the 
conception that inebriety, whether in adults or chil- 
dren, is the cause of crime. 

When one, in the search for this illusive cause, turns 
to heredity, the difficulty is just as great. This is in 
spite of the general belief that strongly marked traits 
must necessarily be the legacy of descent. The results 
of scientific investigation have, since 1859, been so 
startling, and the knowledge of them has been so 
perseveringly reiterated, that a really surprising amount 
of information on the subject has become diffused. 
One must of course expect that the applications of 
such knowledge should at times be inexact, and that 
is the very fact which experience illustrates. Because 
certain forms of insanity seem to leave an inherited 



1 84 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

taint, the general conclusion is frequently and very 
rashly reached that all forms of mental disease leave 
traces of a similar kind upon descendants. Because 
flowers produce flowers, because human beings beget 
human beings, the particular deduction is held that all 
individual traits may likewise be transmitted. In this 
way, an opinion in regard to crime is held, there is a 
general belief that the offspring of a man who has time 
and time again been convicted of anti-social acts must 
partake of his nature, must have an equally small 
amount of resistance to temptation, must be marked 
with the same convict's stripe, and at every possible 
opportunity attempts are made to trace such a con- 
nection. When, as the result of coincidence or of fact, 
the relationship has been established, the case is held 
up as a shining example of the popular belief. Our 
inquiry in this matter would be much simplified, and 
our faith in the broad working of heredity much more 
surely founded, if there were not so many evidences of 
an unjustly broad application of the principle in ques- 
tion. Our faith receives a crushing blow when we read 
in an authoritative English report that "in the five 
years, 1887-91, the children whose parents were habit- 
ual criminals formed two per cent of the industrial 
school {i.e., youthful criminals) population." Another 
blow to this belief is the conclusion which a sifting of 
records forces upon one, that a criminal calling does 
not as a rule descend from father to son. On the other 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD-CRIMINAL 1 85 

hand, in the vast majority of cases, the art is learned, 
not inherited. There seems to be need for a distinct 
training, which most children can easily absorb. There- 
fore, one is not at all shocked when a capable investi- 
gator enunciates the idea that crime "descends by 
apprenticeship, and not, as a rule, by parenthood." 

There still remains the strong idea that acquired 
characteristics are not transmissible. We know that a 
parent who has suffered an amputation of a limb does 
not hand down to his children a like deformity ; we 
know that in the pursuit of certain industries changes 
of form occur that are not transmitted, that in the cloth- 
cutting trade the distal phalanges of the left hand^ 
on account of the pressure of holding the fabric, are 
twisted out of their normal lines, and finally constitute 
a permanent deformity. Although this deformity may 
exist in a man for a whole generation, nevertheless, his 
children do not bear any marks of it. A man may be 
exquisitely cultured, his children, under the proper cir- 
cumstances, may be crude boors. It has not been 
proved that there is in human germ-plasm the faculty 
of absorbing the results of experience ; all that can be 
demonstrated is the handing on of characteristics that 
are more nearly somatic. A certain shape of skull, a 
certain complexion, a certain dimension of stature, are 
clearly matters of inheritance. But characters which 
are produced by environment are not in the same cate- 
gory, are without the pale of hereditary influence. 



1 86 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

Whatever effects are produced in this way are the re- 
sult of a particular set of environments and do not 
necessarily extend beyond the person in whom they 
exist. Ordinary life is full of exemplifications of this 
which, with little trouble, may be clearly recognized. 
For instance, glance at the children committed to the 
industrial and reformatory schools in England. A 
short time ago, their numbers increased so markedly 
that the growth became the subject of official inquiry. 
The children were found to have followed not merely 
in the ordinary inheritable traits of their parents, but 
still more did they mirror the effects of their surround- 
ings. They became criminals at their early age, be- 
cause anti-social acts were the patterns upon which 
their lives were cast. Thus in the evidence brought 
out by the Royal Commission on Reformatory and 
Industrial Schools, a member of the Gateshead School 
Board deposed that the parents of the children com- 
mitted to the Gateshead Industrial School consisted of 
the " refuse of the laborers in the large manufactories, 
men who have been thrown out of employment, and 
who have drifted into the very lowest class of the 
population." 

On the other hand, to show how little effect heredity 
has in the production of juvenile crime, take the case 
of children, descended from approximately the same 
class of parents as those cited above, who were sup- 
ported wholly or in part by London charity. Accord- 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD-CRIMINAL 18/ 

ing to the returns for the year 1891-92 of the Local 
Government Board, more than one-half of these chil- 
dren were taken care of without the parents being 
similarly provided for. As a condition of this support, 
the authorities held the power of carefully looking 
after their wards. They assiduously watched the ways 
of these children, they shut them off from the tempta- 
tions and the vicious practices in which otherwise they 
must have participated, they stood, after a fashion, in 
the responsible position of parents. Restraint took 
the place of license, supervision came in where care- 
lessness went out, responsibility was substituted for 
neglect. The result was truly remarkable, and the 
children, in consequence, seemingly lived quite differ- 
ent lives. So much changed were they that they were 
" hardly ever arrested as vagrants or thieves " ; they 
were effectively shielded "from the very class of of- 
fences which come within the provisions of the Indus- 
trial School Acts." These facts serve as nails to hold 
the proof together, and in order to clinch them on the 
other side, it is necessary only to quote Morrison's gen- 
eralization that "in the year 1891, forty-four per cent 
of the juveniles committed to reformatories were living;- 
at home, and had both parents alive." It must be 
quite clear that the home and its environment were 
the infecting material ; the children served as culture 
media, and showed symptoms of infection, the principal 
of which was an anti-social tendency. 



1 88 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

Of late years no study in the practical effects of 
heredity has carried with it a greater amount of popu- 
lar belief than Dugdale's account of the "Jukes." They 
'were a family of criminals and paupers whose history 
dates back to the first half of the eighteenth century. 
They lived together in a section of country which has 
been called "one of the crime-cradles of the State of 
New York." They were vicious, lazy, addicted to all 
manner of excess and crime. The total number of 
persons in this family and its descendants has been 
estimated at twelve hundred. Each generation handed 
on to the next all the crime and vice that the mind of 
man could possibly conceive. For the most part they 
herded together in roughly made shanties, where they 
lived a vile sort of life in common. With this place as 
a base of supplies, they preyed upon the community 
at large, distributing their evil influence in a way that 
is hard fully to realize. Generation after generation 
showed similar traits of disease, of viciousness, licen- 
tiousness and crime. An elaborate sociological study 
has been made of them, with the conclusion that the 
children were modeled after the parents. This family 
has pointed the moral in many discourses on heredity ; 
they have served to fasten the idea in the minds of 
many people that in human beings the course of in- 
heritance of characteristics is direct ; that there is an 
inevitable fate which decides a child's mental and 
physical constitution, even before birth. 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD-CRIMINAL 1 89 

Such a conclusion is more than rash, and a fairly 
careful consideration of the facts will show how false 
it is. In this crowd of unfortunates there was no 
possibility of intercourse with decent citizens ; the 
"Jukes" children were shut out from every humanizing 
influence ; they were pariahs, constantly suspected, con- 
stantly distrusted, against whom the hand of every man 
was virtuously raised. Their children were born in the 
midst of the worst possible surroundings, and inhaled 
the odor of all manner of vice long before they knew 
what the boundaries between good and bad are. At 
a time when slavery was legal in this State, they 
showed how abysmal was their grade in the social 
scale by marrying mulattoes. With such surroundings 
any other fate was impossible. " The tendency of 
human beings is to obtain their living in the direc- 
tion of least resistance, according to their views of 
what that direction is." With every example mark- 
ing the way to crime, with every obstacle standing in 
the way to virtue, it would be almost miraculous if 
they were reputable. As the author himself has said, 
"want, bad company, neglect, form the environment 
that predisposes to larceny." When these factors are 
increased by all known means, one has a predisposi- 
tion that becomes magnified into a salient trait. 

Curiously enough, Dugdale has unconsciously given 
instances of the method by which the viciousness of 
the "Jukes" might have been prevented, by which 



190 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

these seemingly hopeless characters might have been 
reclaimed. He mentions a married pair of this family 
who removed from the rest to where they were not 
so well known. Naturally, the outlook changed, they 
left the ranks of beasts, and took their stand among 
human beings. Their offspring developed in much 
the same way as the other children of the new neigh- 
borhood, as many children of a fairly respectable 
parentage. As the author says: "This pair thus 
measurably protected themselves and their progeny 
from the environment of eight contaminating persons, 
all immediate relatives, whose lives were, with few 
exceptions, quite profligate." He mentions still an- 
other case that is equally instructive. One of the 
"Juke" women, a harlot and criminal, died in the 
poor house, leaving a daughter of the age of one year 
behind her. This child, according to hard ideas of 
heredity, should have year by year shown increasing 
tendencies toward evil ways, and in all likelihood, if 
she had remained within the taint of her family's 
influence, she must have done so ; but fortunately, a 
lady of wealth adopted her, gave her some of the care 
which siie needed, and at the time of the report — 
when she was old enough, according to the family 
standard, to show vicious tendencies — she was seem- 
ingly quite normal. If this happy change in her fort- 
unes had not occurred, if she had remained with her 
mother's family, " which must have been sufficient 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD-CRIMINAL I9I 

without heredity to stimulate licentious practices," 
there is very little doubt of what her fate would have 
been. And then there would have been still another 
case of the inexorable law by which the attributes of 
the parents show themselves in the children. In simi- 
lar ways it would be easy to multiply such instances 
in other families, where children of vicious birth, when 
adopted into finer surroundings, blossomed out into 
useful men and women, and in like manner, one can 
find enough cases of well-born offspring degenerating 
far below their natural plane, when their atmosphere 
was such as to make the falling off logical. 

If now we are not satisfied with heredity as the 
essential cause of crime, if ignorance, if destitution, if 
drunkenness, are not the cause, can we turn with 
greater faith to the other explanations ? To most of 
them, certainly not. For these are such as have too 
little weight, which at most may be called secondary. 
Various authors have claimed that climate is a con- 
trolling cause, that variations in latitude have impor- 
tant significance. But this can hardly be the fact, for 
all climates and lands have similar crimes and anti- 
social acts ; they all seem to suffer from the same sick- 
ness, and all are powerless to heal themselves. It is 
true that there may be some difference in the symp- 
toms, such as the greater proportion of crimes against 
the person in Southern countries, and the greater pro- 
portion of offences against property in Northern. But 



192 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

the disease is to all intents and purposes the same 
the world over. Seasons, others say, are responsible. 
Here again one is dissatisfied, for there is no season 
which is without its wrong deeds, nor is there even the 
satisfaction of logical sequence between the exigencies 
of the weather, and the showing which crime makes. 
Thus one would expect that in the harshest seasons, 
when human needs are greatest, when want is most 
keenly felt, men would become so desperate as to 
throw aside social restraints, and in order to satisfy 
their wants, prey upon whoever came into their hands. 
But as a matter of fact, all this is quite different from 
the real state of things. Surprising as it may seem, 
nevertheless it is true, that crime is commonest in the 
pleasantest seasons of the year, when people have least 
in nature to contend with, when they are most abroad 
and mingling together. It has even been said that food 
is the acting cause, that strong meat foods inflame the 
passions, heat the blood, and incline men to deeds of 
violence. This is so far from the truth that it needs 
merely the mention of a concrete case to set it at rest. 
The Italians as a people have a largely vegetable diet 
that is not as "heating," their food is not nearly as 
"strong" as that of the people of the United States. 
Nevertheless, the percentage of crime among the 
Italians is among the highest, while that of the United 
States is among the lov/. Another case in point is that 
of the native inhabitants of India, whose diet is both 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD-CRIMINAL 1 93 

light and meagre. And yet, if it were not for the 
interference of the carnivorous English, they would 
even now be addicted to the almost universal practice 
of infanticide. 

In ruling out these factors of poverty, ignorance, 
inebriety, heredity, food and weather, we have done 
something to clear the view, and have brought a decis- 
ion within reasonable distance. We may be helped by 
reading the results of investigations in the subject, no 
matter where conducted. Thus we know positively 
that crime occurs in all ranks and at all ages, that the 
particular form which it assumes depends upon the 
maturity and circumstances of the individual. A child 
of seven years is unable on account of his immaturity 
to commit highway robbery, or most of the offences 
against the person ; he is so weak in mind and body 
that the most he can do is to be guilty of vagrancy or 
larceny. Any boy, for instance, who is well cared for, 
who is well nourished and lovingly watched, is plainly 
unable to fall into this category. Such offenders one 
would not find among the offspring of the well-to-do 
and more fortunate classes. On the contrary, among 
those people whose parental care is least, whose ability 
and willingness to attend to the needs of their children 
are smallest, one should find the greatest numbers of 
this sort of delinquents. Such a class one finds in the 
lowest grade of workers, among the so-called general 
laborers, for their ranks are in large part made up of 
o 



194 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

men who have failed in other branches, men who have 
ahnost no training of mind or body worthy of the 
name, men who are least self-controlled, least provided 
with the means of supplying the needs of a family. 
They have the greatest difficulty in maintaining a re- 
spectable position in society ; their short-sightedness 
and improvidence prevent them from seeing the conse- 
quences of their acts, and naturally they easily fall 
victims to their wants or their passions. This is the 
reason why low-skilled workers are proportionately from 
three to four times more numerous in prisons than in 
the general community. It follows, consequently, that 
their children are least provided for, that they have the 
worst examples set before them, that they are most lia- 
ble to contract vicious practices. Thus it has been 
officially reported that "of the number of young of- 
fenders committed to reformatories in the year 1891, 
there were, as near as it is possible to calculate, thirty- 
two per cent descended on one or both sides from 
parents who neglected to control them, or deserted 
them, or were in prison for crime." Here one sees a 
direct connection of cause and effect ; these children 
were vicious, not necessarily because their parents were 
ignorant or poor, but simply because, since worthy ex- 
amples to imitate were absent, and opportunities to 
wrong-doing meant gratification, they took the easiest 
road to satisfy their wants. 

Even after they have committed wrong, have been 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD-CRIMINAL 195 

caught and punished, they are no whit improved. 
They are released from prison more thoroughly than 
ever infected with viciousness by companionship with 
a herd of youthful offenders — imps, one might call 
them ; they return to their homes and former sur- 
roundings, and the same old story repeats itself. The 
only change consists in their greater age, their wider 
experience, their broader possibilities for mischief. It 
is inevitable that their ways should be as bad as before 
or worse, so that one is not surprised, when reading 
the returns for the year 1894, to learn that sixty-four 
per cent of the offenders who had been committed to 
reformatories had been convicted of crime two or more 
times. It must be so, and any other result would be 
illogical. The whole train of causes leads up to this 
fact. Other elements in the causation of crime have a 
similar working. Although drunkenness is in itself no 
real cause, and although children, vicious or otherwise, 
are not as a rule given to drink, nevertheless, inebriety 
helps to make the environment from which young crimi- 
nals go forth. The offspring of drunken parents are 
neglected, are demoralized by the example and the con- 
dition of their parents. They are left without care and 
support at a time when these things are as necessary 
as air and food. And naturally enough, they pick up 
their living in the manner of least resistance. This 
must surely lead them to the dock ; it accounts for the 
estimate that from fifteen to twenty per cent of youth- 



196 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

ful convicts are descended from parents who are usually 
termed drunkards. Here again we must keep in mind 
that alcohol has no wondrous and special working of its 
own that is worse than any other agency. It is no 
worse in its results than certain other factors, the 
abuse of which leads to unsettling the mind and body. 
In the majority of cases such general abuses are at 
work. A clear view of the physiological development 
of the child would a priori convince one of this truth. 
But the proof is made strong when one reads that "at 
least eighty in every hundred of parents of young crimi- 
nals are addicted to vicious, if not criminal, habits." 

It is not in mind and disposition alone that children, 
by growing up in circumstances of neglect and chance, 
are affected. Their bodies at the same time, and in 
somewhat similar ways, are retarded. Naturally these 
two effects must act upon each other, making abnormal 
growth still more pronounced. Thus children come to 
have weak bodies, not so much from heredity as from 
their manner of life, not because they were born so, but 
because their environment kept them down. One may 
see how true this is by consulting the published report 
of the Committee of the British Association of 1883, in 
regard to the relative statures of boys between the ages 
of eleven and twenty-two in the population at large, 
and in that of the industrial and reformatory schools. 
They found the tallest boys, in proportion to their 
age, in the public schools ; below them came the boys 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD-CRIMINAL 1 97 

in the so-called middle-class schools ; then those in the 
elementary schools and in private military schools ; and, 
last of all, the inmates of the industrial schools. A 
still more sweeping report was made by another Com- 
mittee, which stated that the industrial schools showed 
a greater percentage of unnaturally small children than 
any other class in the whole English population. 
These statements are rendered much more vivid by 
knowing that in the various planes mentioned above 
there was a difference of six inches in stature between 
the first and the last. These facts are pregnant with 
meaning, and the better the evidence on the subject, 
the more positive are results. Still another Commit- 
tee, the Anthropometric Committee of the British As- 
sociation, in the same year made similar researches in 
regard to variations in weight. Their results both for 
boys and girls coincided most closely with those cited 
above. At any age between six and sixteen the chil- 
dren of the industrial schools are far below the average 
in weight, while between these children and those of 
the population at large there was, at the age of four- 
teen years, a difference of twenty-four and three-fourths 
pounds. When one realizes the close relationship be- 
tween body and mind, — a relationship so intimate that 
no man can say where it begins and ends, — one can 
see the full importance of these figures. Dwarfed 
bodies, as a rule, mean dwarfed minds and souls, poorly 
nourished frames do not go hand in hand with a clear 



198 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

and normal intellectual and moral growtli. What helps 
one helps the other; what twists and weakens one 
helps to debase and enfeeble the other. Practical 
illustrations of this may be seen in Dr. Warner's 
researches, which state that about one-third of all 
youthful criminals have a defective mental develop- 
ment. From my own experience, which has been 
fairly large, I believe that this figure underrates, rather 
than overrates, the fact. 

It should be clearly understood that the causation, as 
well as the management of pauperism, vice and crime, 
stands upon a foundation of physiology and anatomy, 
rather than unstable metaphysics and emotions. Such 
conditions exist in accordance with definite laws of 
development ; they act just as steadily and ruthlessly 
as the laws of gravitation, of the conservation of 
energy. One of the troubles in considering the mat- 
ter is that undue stress has been put upon heredity. 
Claims have been made for it, and phenomena have 
been referred to it that rightly belong in other cate- 
gories. This idea has been so used that it serves as a 
scapegoat, freeing parents, guardians and the commu- 
nity from a responsibility which rightfully rests upon 
them. When a child, oppressed by hidden or open 
disease, by ignorance and neglect, by faulty systems 
of training, shows naturally unfavorable characteristics, 
the guilt is promptly laid at the convenient door of 
hereditary descent. lie is supposed to be bad because 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD-CRIMINAL 199 

some of his ancestors failed to react in normal ways to 
the stimuli of their environment ; the signs of viciouS' 
ness in his life, because his mother or grandmother, 
laboring possibly under the stress of thoughtlessness, 
ignorance, or lack of controlling influences, acted in a 
manner that society does not consider right or feasible, 
are construed to indicate an irradicable depravity of 
temperament. The very same impulses, or the charac- 
teristics from which they spring, may, under different 
auspices, be quite easily understood, and quite as easily 
accounted for. 

The exigencies of modern civilization are quite arti- 
ficial and carry with them their special changes in the 
organism. Such changes must be certainly felt in the 
cerebral tissue, and once felt, the person in his ordinary 
life, obeying the call of such acquired characteristics, 
acts in a direct and logical way, without regard to 
where that way may lead him. A cure for an uneven 
development lies not in punishment, imprisonment, or 
ostracism, — all of which are bound to make the devel- 
opment still more uneven, — but in methods which will 
tend to abolish these artificial disabilities, which will 
promote a normal rounding out of cerebral growth, 
even though generations of effort are needed to pro- 
vide a cumulative force that will be sufficient to over- 
come the effect of centuries of wrong ideas and faulty 
methods. A withered limb is thought to be lightly re- 
gained if treatment for a period many times the length 



200 Till' DEVELOPMENT OF THE CFIILD 

of the ori{;inal pathological process is finally successful. 
And there is no inherent reason why a {greater patience 
and hopefulness should not be used where the nutrition 
of the nervous system is concerned. 

That this question of nutrition lies at the very base 
of the probhnn there is the l)est reason to believe; 
that arrested development is at the liottom of mental 
incapacity wc know for a certainty. liy a parity of 
reasoning and experience, the opinion that it is of 
equal importance in the formation of character must 
likewise be held. Children are not born moral, do not 
become cultured and educated by a heaven-sent f^ift of 
intuition. Besides this, there is very little of spontane- 
ous endowment in the matter. The process is one of 
gradual up-building, of an unfolding of cerebral celbs. 
It begins with the very beginning of the being, at 
the motuent of conception, and ends — no one knows 
exactly where. Di.sturbanccs of nutrition occur in 
obedience to known as well as unknown causes. 
Those which result in physical deformities leave their 
mark so plainly that they have been freely discussed. 
On the other hand, menial and jisychical impressions 
may be made in an exactly similar way. They pro- 
duce deformities quite as frequently, although they 
may not be designated by this name. According to 
manner of occurrence, time, duration or social posi- 
tion, they may bi; called eccentricity, crime, weakness, 
rashness, or any of the otlu;r terms which we give [>> 



DEVELOPM KNT OF TIIIC CHILD-CRIMINAL 201 

umisiial characteristics. When one realizes tiiat nutri- 
tion means all the circumstances of life which affect 
tissue change, one comes to feel that no infiuence is 
entirely outside of its limits. Wrong methods of feed- 
ing, of rest, of amusements, of ordered attention, (;f occu- 
pation, are some of the elements which help t(; make a 
child one-sided. As he grows older the opportunities 
for divergence in his development increase in large 
degree. With increasing activity he is more and more 
allowed to follow in his own feebly directed desires, 
there is less and less of princii)le and a correspondingly 
greater amount of expediency in his training. These 
thing.s, as we know, diminish his power of physical 
resistance in direct ratio to the extent of their preva- 
lence. When one reads that "from childhood up to 
manhood the delinquent population loses a higher pro- 
portion of its numbers than the juvenile population as 
a whole," one has the statement of facts in gross, but 
the principle back of it applies to every child in the 
community. While it is true that the abuses in 
question are greatest in (piantity and quality among 
the most unfavorable j)ortion of j)eople, nevertheless, 
they are scattered in varying frequency in practi- 
cally all circles, and their results arc in like manner 
discriminated. 

As Dugdale most wisely said, " luivironmcnt is the 
ultimate controlling factor in determining careers." 
l'"or environment is the steady source of scnse-iinprcs- 



202 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

sions which, if repeated sufficiently often, produce 
permanent states of mind. Of course there are many 
cases of a congenital condition of varying develop- 
ment in function and nutrition. And where the sur- 
roundings of the child are not of the wisest, these 
aberrations become still more exaggerated. It is in 
such cases that there is most need to find out not 
only what variations are present, but also to arrange 
every influence that comes in contact with him to the 
end of making the balance of faculties even. It is 
not in the lowest classes alone that such dispropor- 
tions exist, nor are the limits of viciousness necessarily 
bound to those of indictable crime. In every grade 
of life one finds the best evidence of inharmonious 
growth. The wealthy rake, the intellectual crank, the 
heartless egoist, the useless idler, are all subjects of 
the disease of disproportion in cerebral development. 
The symptoms vary according to the particular com- 
bination of nerve cells and the environment in which 
the person has lived. The criminal's course is bio- 
logically, although not forensically, similar. In most 
cases there is no inherent reason why he should be 
markedly vicious. Naturally this statement does not 
include the cases, which unquestionably occur at times, 
of a seemingly spontaneous viciousness, a congenital 
moral blindness, a crime-tendency by intuition. Al- 
though such cases are rare, nevertheless, their exist- 
ence may not be denied. In the same way, physicians 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD-CRIMINAL 203 

occasionally see cases of antenatal deformity, babies 
born without limbs, or eyes, or any other portion of 
the body. The occurrence of these pitiful curiosities 
does not invalidate the fact that the vast majority of 
losses of limbs and eyes is due to known, observed 
and preventable causes. It requires no argument to 
prove that preventable disasters throw upon the re- 
sponsible guardian a heavy burden of guilt. In similar 
ways one may show that the person with a deformed 
and maimed character has not himself alone to blame 
for the misfortune. 

It is a regrettable fact that one does not often find 
families where the best provision is made against pre- 
ventable disasters in character. What children see 
and hear, whether it be good or bad, they will imitate. 
They learn the lessons of their life not so much from 
books, sermons or lectures, as from practical demon- 
stration. A household which- is characterized by 
vicious habits of mind and body brings forth a brood 
of children that are fit to hold the community as 
their proper prey. Year by year, as example makes 
a progressively stronger impress, they become more 
inclined to harmful lives and ideals. It is for this 
reason that one finds offences increasing as maturity 
approaches. Any species of training is more thor- 
oughly absorbed by a child of seven years than one 
of five years. By the age of sixteen, he is not only 
more capable of action, but also his mental processes 



204 1't^E DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

arc more thoroughly crystallized. When he reaches 
maturity only a moral revolution can change his ways 
of thinking and acting. In the ordinary family circle 
an analogous process is constantly working : ideals of 
speech, of demeanor, of morals, are absorbed just as 
surely as dry sand sucks up water. The child repre- 
sents in his future growth what his imitative faculty 
has fed upon. If he has lived where deceit is prac- 
tised, where courtesy is an article of luxury, where 
metaphorically speaking people go about in their moral 
slippers, where above all he notices that one code of 
conduct is practised at home while quite another is 
publicly advocated, he is quite unable to realize in his 
later self a high standard of ethical bearing. 

A parent has more to do than merely provide for his 
child's physical wants and his educational needs as 
regulated by state limitations ; indeed, these things are 
not the most important. In addition he should feel 
himself bound to set a model and provide an atmos- 
phere that stands for the best ideal which he is able to 
conceive. The training consists not so much in formal 
expositions of duty as in the daily practice, the hourly 
practice, of them. He is bound to feel that he has in 
himself the powers and the responsibilities of a maker, 
a creator. Every faculty and every possibility in him 
he must regard as glorified, because from them may 
start streams of moral energy which are bound to in- 
crease with their duration in time. Such doctrine has 



DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD-CRIMINAL 205 

often been looked upon as proper to the pulpit ; and it 
may be, but simply in the measure that all right con- 
duct should be similarly treated. Outside of this, how- 
ever, so long as it is founded upon known principles of 
psychological growth, it has a real bearing upon the 
proper training and treatment of children in everyday 
life, it has a definite biological importance. There is 
as much need for the expert in pediatrics to include it 
in a scheme for the bringing up of children as there is 
to work out the need for a proper method of feeding, 
a proper care of the eyes, or any subject involving a 
light ordering of the physical economy. 

One of the most revered East Indian theologies has 
an article of its teaching which inculcates the idea of a 
permeating individual responsibility in every phase of 
life. It holds that no word, no thought, no act, — in 
short, no circumstance in life, no matter how minute 
and trivial it may be, — but has its definite share in 
making up the sum of existence. That the character- 
istic results are not immediately apparent is no reason 
for losing sight of the antecedent causes, any more 
than one should be sceptical about the origin of elec- 
trical manifestations because the generating cause can- 
not be seen. Human senses are gross, and human 
reason, in most cases, is not over fine ; and a depend- 
ence upon their spontaneous cooperation and approba- 
tion is too often unreliable. We are apt to grasp at 
generalizations with which we have become familiar 



206 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

and to consider that outside of this there is no truth. 
Thus, for instance, by constant iteration we have come 
to believe that various social evils are caused by crowd- 
ing many inhabitants into a comparatively small space. 
We forget the very important fact that, in the main, 
evil results start from this condition only in the pres- 
ence of industrial and economic instability. It is, on 
the other hand, unquestionably true that a crowded 
population living in economic and industrial stability 
is much better than a sparse one in equally uncertain 
conditions. The same principle may be applied all 
through life to the main question of culpability : chil- 
dren, as a rule, act out in their lives the influences 
which have been brought to bear upon them. Their 
natural faculties are modifiable and are modified by 
their environment to such an extent that, in the main, 
responsibility for their careers is largely due to the 
influences in which they have spent the most plastic 
years of their life. 



CHAPTER IX 

The Child's Development as a Factor in pro- 
ducing THE Genius or the Defective 

The study of biology brings with it a knowledge of 
the fact that animal life, in its various orders and 
species, develops unevenly, that the fruition of this 
development — useful and matured action — grows in 
ways that are peculiar to each kind. Moreover, we 
know, as has been stated in an earlier part of this 
work, that the higher the organism the longer does it 
require to attain a full development of its capabilities. 

So low a form as amoeba comes into existence and 
attains full organic and functional maturity at the same 
time. As one ascends in the scale of life, one finds 
not only a progressively longer period between birth 
and maturity, but also a progressively greater interval 
between organic and functional growth. As Clouston 
puts it: "The difference between what the brain of a 
child of eight and the brain of a man of twenty-five 
can do and can resist is quite indescribable. The 
organ at these two periods might belong to two dif- 

207 



208 THE DEVKLOI'MENT OK THE CHILD 

fcrent species of animals so far as its essential qualities 
go." At a glance one can see how important in regu- 
lating one's ideas of growth this rule is, but the whole 
story is not yet stated. Even after the main necessi- 
ties of organic form exist, a long time is required be- 
fore the active and efficient working power comes into 
play. The biologist is deeply impressed by the remark- 
able fact that the nerve cell requires a long time, even 
after it reaches its full bulk, to grow into the full exer- 
cise of its ultimate powers. "We may say that after 
most of the nerve cells of the brain have attained their 
proper shape and size, it takes them the enormous time 
of eighteen or nineteen years to attain such functional 
perfection as they are to arrive at." 

One must keep in mind that the main business of 
a nerve cell is to elaborate energy. This process is 
the result of chemical decomposition of cell contents, 
a result which constitutes in part the phenomenon of 
physiological metabolism. In so far as this metabo- 
lism is normal and healthful, energy is stored up, 
which expresses itself in ways that are characteristic 
of the cell activities. The quantity of energy to be 
disposed of does not necessarily depend upon the 
quantity of waste or decomposition in the cell. In- 
deed, one regularly finds a progressively great amount 
in proportion to the immaturity of the acting cells. 
In the cortical cells of the infant or the defective per- 
son of greater age (whose condition approximates to 



THE GENIUS AND THE DEFECTIVE 209 

that of the infant) one finds a comparatively large 
production of chemical metabolism. Such cells are 
thus in a condition of natural instability which for 
very small causes assumes a phase of irritability ; this 
is commonly out of all proportion to the exciting 
cause. In such a way pathological action is easy of 
occurrence and may be really serious in results. It 
is difficult enough for these cells to work normally, 
to make and direct sufficient energy to respond to 
normal impulses in normal ways ; and on account of 
this difficulty, abnormal and pathological development 
or arrest of development is and ought to be corre- 
spondingly easy. 

This is true not only theoretically but also practi- 
cally ; and one can see proofs of it in any clinic for 
nervous diseases. As Sachs says: "During the pe- 
riod of incomplete development the nervous system 
responds much more energetically to morbid influences 
than it does in later years." As the nervous system 
grows older and attains a greater degree of functional 
independence, the amount of energy produced is more 
directly in ratio with the amount of chemical change. 
Likewise, we know that chemical decomposition can 
come about only when there is a sufficiently large 
supply of material to work upon. This material must 
be constantly renewed through the regular channels 
of nourishment, of assimilating convertible substances 
which are able to supply the needs of the cell. There- 



210 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

fore one would expect greater energy, other things 
being equal, from a well fed cell and less energy from 
a poorly fed one. So far as this view is concerned, 
it makes little difference whether the cell in question 
is nourished equally with other cells or whether it 
absorbs nutrition at the expense of, and to the exclu- 
sion of, other cells. In the first case, there would be 
a general ability to elaborate characteristic energy, in 
the second there would be a disproportionate, a one- 
sided development. The first would have greater all- 
round growth, the second wo'uld have a smaller growth 
or an atrophy in one part with a greater growth or 
hypertrophy in another. 

Another function of nerve cells is that of discharging 
the energy stored up. When each cell or group of 
cells discharges its force in a manner that carries 
out the special reason for its existence, we have as 
a result the normal and ordinary working of all the 
parts of the body. When one group of cells discharges 
a greater amount of energy than its normal share, a 
lack of balance results which shows itself, as a rule, 
throughout the whole organism. Thus we know that 
the action of the heart is heightened by the so-called 
accelerator nerves and lowered by the so-called de- 
pressor nerves or nerve cells. These two sets, by their 
harmonious interaction, regulate the work of the heart 
muscle so that it adjusts itself easily to all the varying 
changes of blood pressure, heat dissipation, and all the 



THE GENIUS AND THE DEFECTIVE 211 

Other multiform physiological phenomena that properly 
belong to it. If in consequence of the over-nutrition 
of one group, or too great a discharge of energy, the 
balance of developmental power is not maintained, there 
must come about a deviation from normal work and 
nutrition, with characteristic symptoms of the disorder. 

The same idea holds good in all matters of control, 
whether reflex, automatic, or voluntary. And in ex- 
actly the same way that muscular action and muscular 
tone are controlled, just so the parts of the nervous 
system, which by their exercise supply thought, work 
out their purpose. Every part of this system is subject 
to these same laws, so that there can be no difference 
in the elaboration of energy no matter what its ultimate 
mode of expression may be. Thus the cells whose 
energy goes towards providing the basis for the moral 
thought of a man, are subject to the same laws as 
those which provide the basis of the more exclusively 
intellectual processes. Considerations which encourage 
or discourage one affect the other in like manner. 

There is another fact to be kept in mind, and it 
concerns the fact of systematic inhibition. All through 
the central nervous system there are cells and groups 
of cells which have the function of retarding and blunt- 
ing the more positive energy developed by others, 
and in certain cells of a high type both negative and 
positive functions are present. Thus we find that all 
through the nervous tissue there run series of counter- 



212 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

checking influences, whose nice equihbrium means fine 
adjustment of potentiaHty. When one factor or an- 
other is out of proportion, a one-sided action must 
result. Also we find that the restraining or inhibitory- 
function is the last to develop. This is chronologically 
correct, for a restraining force has no reason for its 
existence until the energy which it is meant to restrain 
is really present. In the same logical chronology we 
find that the vital automatic processes, heart and lungs, 
have their inhibitory force ready to act approximately 
well at birth ; the various somatic reflexes blossom 
out in their turn, while the more clearly intellectual 
are the last of all to come to maturity. In childhood 
disturbances of inhibition are oftenest found, and like- 
wise, for this reason, one finds in childhood a great 
tendency to neurotic action, which works in the way 
of making the abnormal child. Even when the centres 
of these reflexes have attained their approximate form, 
their energy is discharged more easily, more irregularly, 
more capriciously, than in the adult. When the envi- 
ronment, the general nutrition, of the child is imperfect, 
the instability of the nervous state is increased, and 
abnormal action is more likely. Such abnormal action, 
as was mentioned above, may consist in a general 
weakness, a partial weakness, or a partial weakness 
associated with a partial overgrowth. All three con- 
ditions are unfortunate, for they mean limited possi- 
bilities in accomplishing the full objects of life. 



THE GENIUS AND THE DEFECTIVE 213 

This much one must have clearly in mind when con- 
sidering the defective and the genius among children. 
Then one gradually comes to see that there is no 
sharp line between them, that there is a bourne where 
the dull black of idiocy and the brilliant white of 
unusually great mental power meet and blend in the 
quiet gray of the commonplace. As Seguin says, idiocy 
is "an infirmity of the nervous system which has for 
its effect the abstraction of the whole or part of the 
organs and the faculties of the child from the normal 
action of the will." This abstraction comes as the 
result of arrested development, of insufificient nutrition, 
and should not be looked upon as an inevitable and 
immovable thing which occurs regularly in the course 
of descent, like curly hair, or full stature, or like 
certain specific diseases. The more one sees of de- 
fective children, the more one is impressed with the 
striking fact that physical elements play an important 
part in the production and continuance of psychical 
and intellectual impotence. Given certain impaired 
cells, and the equilibrium of cells throughout the body 
is shaken. Given a tuberculous condition, the most 
common disability with which unfortunates have to 
contend, and the chances of good mental growth are 
greatly lessened. 

The effects of such a condition are so marked that 
Shuttleworth, as the result of experience for a quarter 
of a century with defective children, says : " A phthis- 



214 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

ical family history is, indeed, a predominant factor 
traceable in our cases, the percentage in which this 
was found being twenty-eight and thirty-one hun- 
dredths, against twenty-one and twenty-eight hun- 
dredths in which hereditary mental weakness (insanity 
or imbecility) was recorded." Again, Dr. Ireland states 
that " perhaps two-thirds, or even more, of all idiots 
are of the scrofulous constitution." Tuberculosis acts 
in this way not because it has an especial relation to 
mental weakness, but merely because it undermines 
and wears out the general physical constitution. The 
resulting condition is one of lowered nutrition, which 
affects every cell in the body. On the other hand, 
where, in the presence of a tuberculous predisposition, 
adequate means of controlling the diathesis are used, 
there is every reason to believe that not only will 
the general condition be kept at a normal standard, 
but also the tendency to impaired intellectual power 
will be checked. The two things have the close rela- 
tion of cause and effect, and cannot well be separated. 
With increasing experience with these cases, one 
sees more and more reason for believing in a Jack 
of nutrition as the ultimate cause of defective mental 
growth. In an analysis of English cases, fully thirty 
per cent were attributed to ill-health in the mother, to 
injuries, to accidents, to shock during the period of ges- 
tation, all of which may be regarded as means of lower- 
ing vitality in the offspring. This is one-half again as 



THE GENIUS AND THE DEFECTIVE 21$ 

much as were caused by an epileptic and neurotic 
descent, where there might be ground for a belief in 
an hereditary predisposition or transmission, I regard 
this belief as problematical, for there are the best of 
reasons for holding that neurotic and epileptic con- 
ditions stand for impoverished nervous conditions, 
whether they are joined to equally poor somatic states 
or not. So long as this is the case, the progeny of 
persons so constituted could not be expected to be 
strong. Here again there is the rigid relation of 
cause and effect. 

Some of the familiar causes are most to be re- 
spected for their age, rather than their strict con- 
formity with ascertained truth. For instance, there is 
a common belief that consanguinity of parents is a 
potent factor in the causality of idiocy and allied con- 
ditions. But in the analysis of English cases referred 
to, less than five per cent seem to be capable of such a 
classification. And even in this small percentage, the 
main tendency which one can see is a risk of intensify- 
ing family weaknesses. Another time-honored cause — 
intemperance in the parents — seems to be responsible 
for only about sixteen per cent of the whole number. 
And in this case, again, one has to decide whether the 
intemperance itself was the real cause, or whether the 
lowered vitality which preceded, accompanied, or fol- 
lowed the excess, should be blamed. In the latter 
case, the decision would once more rest with the 



2l6 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

fact of impaired nutrition as the primal cause ; an» 
intemperance would take its place with a multitude 
of other factors as merely a means for inducing cyto- 
plasmic poverty. Therefore, one is not at all sur- 
prised in reading an authoritative opinion to this 
effect : " Not every drunken parent procreates an 
idiot ; but when inherited nervous instability from this 
or other causes is intensified in the next generation by 
injudicious marriage, or by unfavorable environment, 
instances of mental degeneracy are apt to occur." 

Even in so low a condition as microcephalus, — a 
state so low as to have simian and even theroid re- 
semblances, — the only cause that one can find is 
something which lowers the vital nutrition of the 
child before birth. Whether it is the general health 
and strength of the mother, or the wise conduct of 
her everyday life, whether it inheres in some nervous 
shock or the strain from physical exhaustion, is very 
hard to say. At all events, we know that the con- 
dition does not necessarily follow any broad path of 
heredity ; and on the other hand we are quite as sure 
that any of the alternatives mentioned above, as well 
as other causes working in similar ways, must be at 
the root of the trouble. The question of responsi- 
bility and the possibility of avoiding this blight is 
one that naturally springs into the mind. But I pre- 
fer to leave it undiscussed, at least for the present. 
The main fact, however, is to recognize that mental 



THE GENIUS AND THE DEFECTIVE 21/ 

defects are due to poor work in the making and the 
rearing of cell tissue, that they are of varying degree 
according to the severity of the causes at work, and 
that the differences between them are differences in 
degree rather than of kind. Likewise, it is well 
known that the injury may not be a general one ; for 
every observer has noticed that certain parts of the 
cerebral tissue may be of lower development or vital- 
ity than others, and that the location of the vicious 
development comes about according to events of which 
we may be ignorant. 

Even in the lowest grade of human beings one finds 
at times a surprising keenness and activity in certain 
parts of the brain, while the remaining portions may be 
remarkably crude. Thus Seguin describes "idiots who 
discriminated species of woods and stones merely by 
smell without having recourse to sight " ; at the same 
time the other senses were very obtuse and unequal. 
Ascending somewhat higher in the scale, one might 
instance such cases as that of very low savages, as for 
example the African Bushmen, whose intellectual devel- 
opment is exceedingly small, but who, on the other 
hand, have a special gift in hearing or smell that is 
truly wonderful. Or, one might take such striking 
cases as that of Blind Tom, a negro, born of common 
slaves, whose general mentality was that of an idiot, 
but whose musical gifts were so extraordinary as to 
entrance thousands of people who heard him. Or, 



2l8 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

again, one might mention the German " Lightning 
Calculator," Dase, who possessed very wonderful mathe- 
matical faculties joined with a general intellectual de- 
velopment that was pitiably meagre. Such cases exist 
in striking numbers. They fortify the opinion that 
intellectual power is, seemingly, distributed vicariously, 
that good and bad, high or low, may go together, that 
intentional or unintentional disadvantages will lower 
the nutrition, and so the function of any part ; while 
conversely, intentional or unintentional advantages will 
heighten both nutrition and function. 

There is still another fact of great importance, that 
one should keep in mind. It is the possibility of im- 
proving a defective mental condition by the various 
means that will provide strength for the weakened 
tissue, that will nourish starved cells, that will awaken 
the parts which sleep in what seems to be a death-like 
slumber. The means for doing this are gradually be- 
coming known, and with this greater knowledge better 
results are obtained. A strong indication of what may 
be done is given by the improvement which comes with 
the change from bad to good sanitary surroundings. 
When so elementary a matter as proper sanitation can 
change a defective to a higher order of person, a world 
of light is by implication thrown upon the subject of 
intellectual growth. That such a change can be 
accomplished there can be no doubt ; for we have as 
testimony the work of Gcggenbuhl and his remarkable 



THE GENIUS AND I'lIE DEFECTIVE 219 

success in treating cretins by a change of surroundings. 
The unfortunate creatures, who in the dull and shad- 
owed valleys of the Alps were but little better than 
beasts, became vastly improved, vastly higher in gen- 
eral capabilities when removed to the bracing air, the 
generous sunshine and the exhilarating freedom of the 
Abendberg. In the same way that weakened lungs, 
feeble muscles, shrunken limbs may be helped, brain 
tissue may be improved organically and functionally. 
Moreover, possible improvement is not confined to any 
special part of the organism. Any tissue, no matter 
at what stage the developmental impulse has been 
arrested, may under proper environment be made to 
take on an added growth and a stronger vitality. 
When Seguin was Director of the Asylum for idiots at 
Bicetre, he wrote a report of his experience that was 
not only interesting, but also deeply instructive. 
"Idiots," he said, "have been improved, educated, and 
even cured ; not one in a thousand has been entirely 
refractory to treatment; not one in a hundred who has 
not been made more happy and healthy ; more than 
thirty per cent have been taught to conform to moral 
and social law, and rendered capable of order, of good 
feeling, and of working like the third of a man ; more 
than forty per cent have become capable of the 
ordinary transactions of life under friendly control, 
of understanding moral and social abstractions, of 
working like two-thirds of a man ; and twenty-five 



220 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

to thirty per cent have come nearer and nearer the 
standard of manhood, till some of them will defy 
the scrutiny of good judges when compared with 
ordinary young men and women." 

All this constitutes a marvellous change from the 
time when Howard in plain terms pilloried the shock- 
ing customs that existed in prisons and asylums. Such 
institutions then were veritable plague-spots of vice, 
misery, inhuman cruelty. Low mental conditions be- 
came still lower, the defective was regarded as a wild 
beast whose proper care, because his condition was con- 
sidered permanent and incapable of improvement, con- 
sisted in annihilating and crushing subjection. More 
than one man in going from one of these cages to 
another traveled on horseback, that his clothes might 
lose the stench with which they were impregnated. 
Physical abuses and degeneration went hand in hand 
with mental. And the creature who was cursed with 
a palpable psychical infirmity would have been more 
fortunate to have lived in the rigorous days of Lacedae- 
mon when such as he were summarily killed off. 
Nevertheless, the customs and opinions of a century 
ago have not been quite stamped out. The general 
public still feel the inertia of by-gone ideas. They still 
regard the defective as a being who is comparable to a 
man born without limbs and without all necessary 
viscera, whose state is fixed as that of a lightning- 
blasted tree or a bare and sterile rock. They do not 



THE GENIUS AND THE DEFECTIVE 221 

keep in mind that in speaking of the feeble-minded 
they must include, as Dr. Firnald does, "all degrees 
and types of congenital defect, from that of the simply 
backward boy or girl, but little below the normal stand- 
ard of intelligence, to the profound idiot, a helpless, 
speechless, disgusting burden, with every degree of 
deficiency between these extremes." They do not 
understand that there can be no clear line of division 
between these classes, and that since there is no such 
line there must consequently be the possibility of 
developing and reclaiming all in some varying degree, 
so long as there is a possible improvement in any. 

The natural conclusion, then, is that the various 
means of improvement, whether ante- or post- natal, 
are adventitious, are with growing knowledge capable 
of control. Even the degree of reclamation is not 
fixed, the limit of yesterday being found to-day quite 
inadequate to mark off the extremes of possibility. 
When one reads in the last national census that there 
were in the United States in 1890, nearly one hundred 
thousand " idiotic and feeble-minded persons," that 
"taking the country as a whole, there are two feeble- 
minded persons to every thousand persons," one is 
well-nigh overwhelmed by this burden of helpless 
misery, inefficiency and misfortune that might in some 
degree be avoided. There can be no doubt that a 
beginning in solving the problem has been made, 
although it is nothing more than a beginning. One 



222 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

begins to have hope when one reads in the first 
report of the trustees of the State Asylum at Syra- 
cuse : "At the base of all our efforts lies the principle 
that, as a rule, none of the faculties are (is) abso- 
lutely wanting, but dormant, undeveloped, and imper- 
fect." And the hope is continued when one reads 
the two rules promulgated at Bicetre : "To exercise 
the imperfect organs so as to develop their functions," 
and " To train the functions so as to develop the im- 
perfect organs." 

If, then, no line between degrees of mental defi- 
ciency may be drawn, if, moreover, the deficiency may, 
on account either of invigorating environment or natu- 
ral endowment, be so slight that there is no appre- 
ciable difference between it and the general average 
of intelligence, then it follows that the so-called 
normal state cannot be sharply marked off, and is 
indeed incapable of sharp definition. All that one 
means by the phrase, "average" or "normal," is, on 
the one hand, the possession of a general amount of 
cellular nutrition by which the person is able to do 
sufficient work to support himself, as well as to absorb 
sufficient discipline to make himself a bearable mem- 
ber of the society in which he lives ; on the other 
hand, the definition goes so far as to include a well- 
rounded and able-bodied intellectual impulse that 
enables the possessor to make a definite and respected 
place for himself in the world. Between these ex- 



THE GENIUS AND THE DEFECTIVE 223 

treraes there are very many grades, and men ascend 
or descend from one to another slowly, but neverthe- 
less with a fair amount of ease. The character of 
their environment goes very far to lay out the paths 
which they are to follow. For the large majority of 
people are endowed in their mental constitutions very 
much as in their physical ; they have sufficient nutri- 
tional activity to carry out the demands of the life in 
which they have grown up, and not much besides. 
In this way one can understand how it is that but few 
men can possibly be ahead of their time, how a fact 
which seems so simple as to be almost trivial would 
to our ancestors have appeared as a wild flight of the 
imagination. An ordinary school-boy of to-day ab- 
sorbs with ease knowledge which would have been 
exceedingly difficult for an Elizabethan to acquire. 
Physical phenomena upon which the use of steam 
and electricity are based, ideas which underlie freedom 
and universal suffrage, theories of art and religion, 
which would have been almost impossible for the 
seventeenth or eighteenth century man, are readily as- 
similated by the ordinary student of our high schools. 
Through all the past years there has been a slow 
but steady growth of nerve and body tissues. In 
addition cerebral cells have become used to receiv- 
ing added and new impressions, the associational 
centres have had a great amount of exercise, the 
capacity for work, for assimilation, has been largely 



224 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

increased. In the face of these facts the fear, which 
one frequently hears expressed about the sum of 
human knowledge and experience being so enormous 
that we are close on to the limit of acquisition, is 
plainly futile. It is true that the world's circum- 
stances have greatly enlarged, but the growth has on 
the whole been so gradual, has had so many prepara- 
tory stages ranging over a great length of time and, 
besides, has followed so inevitable a path, that the 
idea of overstrain is quite out of the question. The 
one thing which is necessary is an improvement in 
methods which shall keep pace with the varying cir- 
cumstances of subjective and objective existence. 
Such improvements the world is constantly trying to 
bring about, and when they are accomplished they 
pass under the name of progress. 

The type of person who has derived most benefit from 
this growth is the one of an even general development, 
who has no particular gift in any direction. Both hered- 
ity and environment have dealt genially with him, so 
that every part of him has a proportionally even develop- 
ment. Such a person is as a rule very rare. What one 
generally sees is a moderate general development with 
an atrophy and hypertrophy in some particular direc- 
tions. On exactly the same plan does one find physi- 
cal endowments distributed. The ordinary man is 
not evenly developed in all his parts. In one case 
there is a disproportionate strength and growth of 



THE GENIUS AND THE DEFECTIVE 22$ 

the arms, in another the parts of the back arc too 
small, still another has the hypertrophied thigh mus- 
cles that a naturally fine bicyclist might have. Or, 
a man may have an unusual corrosive gastric secre- 
tion and thus be especially able to digest food; his 
neighbor may have an exceedingly well developed 
tactile apparatus, so that his sense of touch is more 
than ordinarily keen. Such cases one meets every 
day ; they excite no surprise, simply because they are 
common. We likewise know from experience that 
with proper training all these peculiarities and an 
indefinite number of others like them may be arti- 
ficially reproduced. By such methods one may bring 
about changes in an ordinary person's body which 
would stamp him, if they occurred spontaneously, as 
quite remarkable. 

In such cases of cultivation, one knows the cause 
of the uncommon development, one explains the phe- 
nomena on fairly well understood biological laws, 
stating that an unusually active metabolism has made 
unusual nutritional changes necessary, that the tissue 
involved has, as the result of these changes, thrived 
and grown beyond what would ordinarily have been 
its limit, that the particular cells in question have 
received so much nourishment that their function has 
broadened proportionally. This principle of devel- 
opment has the widest influence on the body, which 
often enough produces results that affect the mind. 

Q 



226 IIIK DEVELOPMENT OF JllK CHILD 

Thus a condition which kMiiporarily or permanently 
so controls the blooil supply to a part that the l^al- 
ance of its metabolism is disturbed would necessarily 
dispose the organ in question to heightened or lowered 
function, according to the direction of disturbance. 
As an example, one might cjuote the group of cases 
of WhitwcU, in which " mental and nervous lethargy 
and torpor," and " no sign of originating mental 
power," were leading features. He goes on to dem- 
onstrate that the condition is due to a "deficient 
development of the vascular system." He believes 
that the imperfect growth rests upon too small a 
heart, aorta, or basal cerebral vessels, so that the cere- 
bral tissues are more or less starved. Where the 
condition is a permanent one, the mental state is 
continously dull. Where it is si)asmodic, there would 
be varying phases of mental dulness and lucidity. 
He traces a direct connection between the virility 
of the mental powers and the nourishing circulation 
which in part helps to make an active nutrition 
possible. 

Where an analogous process of hypertrophy takes 
place in a part or a number of parts, a condition of 
overgrowth results which may go so far as to disturb 
every law of conservation of energy. Such a state 
one calls elephantiasis. The exact causes of it we 
do not know, but of its general disposition there is 
sufficient knowledge to allow a man of Ranke's care- 



THE GENIUS AND THE DEFECTIVE 22^ 

fulness to attribute it to "perturbations of develop- 
ment (luring foetal life." While this statement has 
the inexactness of generalization, nevertheless it shows 
in what direction modern thought is tending. It 
shows us that the scientific world has advanced to 
the stage where it recognizes that there is much in 
every human being which, from the time of concep- 
tion, is susceptible of modification. So long as this 
is so, the main problem which presents itself lies in 
the way of using the possibilities of nutrition so as 
to obtain the best all-around growth. 

Where, as in the instance quoted above, there is 
a one-sided development, the full potentialities of the 
individual are not conserved. It is plain enough that 
a man, every part of whose body is well developed, 
is a better result of training than one whose arms 
are comparatively over-developed, and whose legs are 
comparatively under-developed. A man whose senses 
are fairly keen in all directions is of more use to him- 
self and the community than one who possesses ab- 
normally keen sight and abnormally dull taste or 
touch or hearing. The harmonious relations of parts 
are not broken with impunity. The penalty is an 
ever-increasing unevenness, which is bound to limit 
the man's usefulness to the narrowest possible limits, 
to make him more nearly like a machine. Or the 
process may end in producing curiosities, "freaks," 
beings whose simple ability does not atone for many. 



228 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

sided uselessness. It is bad enough when this lame- 
ness is confined to physical gifts, especially those of 
a low order. The higher one ascends in the scale of 
efificiency, the more deplorable are the results. 

No matter how undesirable these effects may be 
in the man, they are infinitely worse in the child, 
whose growth is in a plastic state of change, who 
needs all possible nourishment for every part of the 
economy, who, in the presence of a drifting-off of 
such nourishment from any part, would suffer not 
merely from a partial vitality, but rather an oblitera- 
tion of the functions involved. A condition like this 
is unfortunate enough when occurring in the purely 
physical powers, but when it appears in the higher 
gifts of the intellect, the emotions, and the character, 
the person should receive much more sympathy, or 
even commiseration. He might rightfully regard him- 
self as the victim of hard circumstances, which have 
placed him in a position somewhat like that of a cripple. 

It is easy to see the close analogy underlying both 
physical and mental gifts. The same classification fits 
equally well to both, the same nutritional laws act as 
surely in the case of one as in that of the other. The 
same laws of cell-growth, cell-hypertrophy and cell- 
atrophy are common. One naturally makes the same 
distinctions between feeble mental power as a whole, 
uneven mental power, and strong general development. 
The first class one calls the feeble-minded or defective, 



THE GENIUS AND THE DEFECTIVE 229 

the second is what one meets in the ordinary man and 
woman, and the third constitutes the highly gifted. 
Between these there are many gradations whose 
nomenclature varies with individual views. 

One of the commonest phenomena is to find a person 
who congenitally or artificially has a leaning in one 
direction, which he develops as far as he can. Such a 
person is called "talented," or, in cases of marked 
development, he is named a "genius." At the same 
time, there is the greatest confusion in the interpreta- 
tion of this word "genius." Some people take it to 
mean unusual intellectual brightness in general, some 
thus designate an unusual relation of associational 
ideas, some call by this name an hypertrophied function 
in any branch of intellectual effort. But in the last 
analysis most people apply the term to a man who has 
achieved great distinction in any of the arts, mostly 
those of literature, painting, sculpture and music. As 
a rule, there is so little of common agreement on the 
subject that he who is a genius to one person is not 
such to the next one. The definition of the quality of 
genius is as multiform as the number of definers in- 
creases. One person calls it "the power of continuity," 
another "the faculty of application," another "the pos- 
sibility of original composition," another "the power of 
leading one's time in any department of intellectual 
effort." Some persons wish to extend the appella- 
tion, speaking of a "moral genius" or a "philanthropic 



230 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

genius" or a "political genius." I have even seen the 
phrase "pugilistic genius." And doubtless this last 
holds as good a title to soundness of doctrine as many 
of the others. The main idea seems to be to include 
in this class any man who shows a marked gift in any 
direction. Under this rule the idiot, Blind Tom, must 
likewise be termed a genius; a "mind-reader" like the 
late Washington Bishop is surely entitled to be called a 
genius ; a convict who, by infinite patience and an un- 
limited supply of time, makes a toy log house out of 
thousands of minute pieces of wood is also a genius ; a 
man with a deep knowledge of human weaknesses and 
necessities, who, by trickery, bribery and corruption, 
plays one faction against another, until he holds the 
political course of a municipality in the hollow palm 
of his hand, is likewise a genius. Anybody and every- 
body, from the highest to the lowest, who makes an 
impress upon the minds of men, is just as clearly 
entitled, according to the diverse and conflicting opin- 
ions generally held, to this glorious name as the great- 
est soul that ever shed a freshening ray of light into 
the hearts and souls of us common mortals. 

The true genius is the grand, the awe-inspiring, the 
soul-compelling figure in human ideals. He is sup- 
posed to stand and should stand on a lofty eminence, 
bathed in clouds, giving out a gorgeous radiance that 
clears the tangled paths of petty mankind who thus 
may run their course to the peaceful resting-place of 



THE GENIUS AND THE DEFECTIVE 23 1 

a quiet and forgotten grave. The god-like impulse in 
him should carry his thoughts and acts beyond the 
reach of frail temptation into the serene land of noble 
creative accomplishment. His life should be the sum- 
mation of men's hopes, their longings, their aspirations. 
The consistent course of such a being's career should 
be the beacon light to which future generations 
might fix their eyes, as the helmsman in a wide sea 
turns his gaze towards the Northern Star. Not a spot 
should sully the pure lustre of his reputation, not a 
blemish should disfigure the entirety of his praise. 
As a consistent whole, his life and works should 
stand in priceless grandeur, so that no man could 
raise against them a carping tone. But, alas ! one 
does not see such careers. On the contrary, one sees 
lives that are pieced and patched, lives that may have 
a strong melody running through them, but marred 
and cheapened by discords and over-tones. For each 
great gift one finds a corresponding weakness, near 
each line of brightness one sees a spot of black. The 
idol's head may be of gold, but his body and feet are 
apt to be made of baser metals and clay. 

The more closely one thinks about the matter, the 
more clearly one sees that what we mean by the 
genius is an ideal, pure and simple. Short of this 
one can find no line which will accurately mark off 
the so-called genius from the talented man, any more 
than one can differentiate the talented from the ordi- 



232 THE DEVELOPMENT Ob THE CHILD 

nary man. What one does find is a varying develop- 
ment in this direction or in that, a greater vitality in 
one line or another ; in other words, a greater produc- 
tion of energy in some group or groups of cells, which 
have had the advantage of a proportionately great 
nourishment. The world would understand the matter 
much better, would be able better to appreciate the 
lesson of superlative accomplishment, if it would speak 
of a great man as a gifted man, rather than a genius. 
It would understand that great gifts do not come 
arbitrarily and without reason ; it knows from common 
experience that the more favorable the training and 
environment of any part of the body are, the better 
will its functions be. Further, it would know that 
naturally great gifts, like smaller ones, may be devel- 
oped and improved. The way to an indefinitely ex- 
tended betterment would thus become plainer, and 
the efforts to secure this betterment would then 
surely, even if slowly, follow. 

The lesson of greatness is not complete unless it 
is studied along with its accompanying weaknesses. 
A great man is unjustly dealt with when only one 
part of him is known. And unquestionably, the com- 
munity is most fairly treated by receiving the most 
faithful impressions. An estimate of Caesar, which 
shows nothing but his remarkable administrative capa- 
city, removes him so far from ordinary methods of 
judgment that what one sees is not the presentment 



THE GENIUS AND THE DEFECTIVE 233 

of the man, but rather a projection of one phase of 
him. A much more realistic and helpful view would 
include the weaknesses that were sufficient to keep 
him far from the pedestal of the demi-god. The 
bloody Napoleon, great in the conquest of armies, in 
the making of countless widows and orphans, in dis- 
membering states, has his limitations so strongly- 
marked, that if time could wipe out the trail of de- 
structive ambition which he left behind him, the best 
part of his deeds would be destroyed. The hyper- 
trophy of a single faculty was strongly marked in 
him. Among men of military fame Washington, in 
the full and rounded development of the whole range 
of man, was infinitely his superior, infinitely more 
worthy of admiration. Of the two, the former played 
the part of ruthless and selfish destroyer; he is one 
of the great personages of the world who is least 
deserving of respect for his characteristic ability. 
Among other deficiencies, his lack of moral sense — 
a constituent element in the cerebral equation — was 
starved, was shriveled. The American, on the other 
hand, approached much nearer to the ideal of develop- 
ment in every part. While not by any means perfect, 
nevertheless his great gifts showed so large and boun- 
tiful a range, that the world may point to him with 
highest pride as an earnest of what manhood may 
possibly come to be. 

Take a man of quite different parts for an example 



234 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

— Wagner, The range of his gifts was wide enough 
to embrace the domains of music, literature and stage 
management, which is indeed a wide field. In these 
arts his hand was that of a master, and all the world 
is now swinging censers before his shrine. While 
appreciating his gifts, one ought likewise to recognize 
how unworthy of admiration he was in many other 
respects ; one ought clearly to see that he embodied 
a one-sided growth, a partial nutrition. Doubtless one 
might, with truth, say that the one-sidedness of this 
nutrition showed itself in the eccentricities and want 
of sanity which unquestionably characterized part of 
his work. The pathological intensity of " Tristan and 
Isolde," and the esoteric mysticism in "Die Gotter- 
dammerung," are far from being the product of a 
normal and admirable cerebral balance. Placed next 
to the joyous healthfulness of " Die Meistersinger," 
they must forever represent high intellectual action, 
plus unusual cortical irritation such as one would not 
expect to find in the healthy and even results of a 
desirable nutrition. 

The more closely one examines the great men of the 
world, the more is one convinced of the satisfactory 
nature of the classification here advocated. At the 
same time, there is not the least desire to subtract one 
jot or tittle from their fame and its reward. On the 
contrary, there is the greatest reason, because these 
gifted men were not the perfectly developed creatures 



THE GENIUS AND THE DEFECTIVE 235 

that unwise partisans construe them to be, to laud their 
great deeds that were done in spite of collateral imper- 
fections. The fact remains the same, that the true 
genius, the man of noble and complete development, 
has never, so far as is known, existed. Doubtless the 
one who comes nearest the mark is Goethe. In him 
there occurred a wonderful combination of the artistic 
and scientific faculties, the like of which has never 
existed in any other man. His breadth of range was 
wonderful, the catholicity of his sympathies, the scope 
of his imagination, immense. His personality was 
deeply impressive, his cultural influence was very great. 
But even he was not evenly rounded. Even he suf- 
fered from a partial development which showed an im- 
perfect functional activity in at least one direction. 
His moral acts were distinctly within the range of 
adverse criticism, and for them there can be no other 
just opinion than a lack of proper development. The 
world must surely come to recognize that a perfect 
exercise of every part of psychical action is the most 
desirable thing within the bounds of human endeavor. 
This would constitute the nearest approach to the per- 
fect man of which we are able to conceive. On this 
principle, moral development is fully as important as 
that which includes proficiency in literature, scientific, 
or artistic departments. No matter how far one may 
consider ethics to be composed of emotional or intel- 
lectual elements, the same general rule would govern 



236 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

it. So long as one knows that cerebral molecular 
action is the origin of the energy which elaborates 
thought and nervous impulse, one must surely conclude 
that the ideal development, the development which 
represents the highest point of efficiency for the in- 
dividual, as well as the community, is the one that will 
invigorate every nerve cell in all its ramification. Not 
only is this the goal for which the world must strive, 
but also it is the standard by which every human being 
should be measured. The contemplation of the ideal 
is the one method by which the acts and action of 
human beings are improved. Nothing less can be 
enough of an incentive nor hold enough of rigid exact- 
ness by which the growth of succeeding times may be 
guided. 

This rule, when applied to the precocious child, — 
the child-genius, — is of overweening importance. Such 
a child necessarily attracts great attention, receives 
unmeasured praise even for faulty performance. His 
unusual faculty is unusual from the standpoint of child- 
hood, a time which one associates with so incomplete 
a development that its work one expects to be petty, 
disconnected, without the concentration and finish that 
mature strength of tissue alone can confer. By respect- 
ing the unstable weakness of immaturity, we know that 
the person thereby receives opportunity to feed the 
delicate nerve substance, to build up a machine that 
will count efficient deeds as the normal expression of 



THE GENIUS AND THE DEFECTIVE 237 

its function rather than a drain upon its very substance. 
The difference between exacting a certain high standard 
in work from an adult, and attempts to extort the same 
efforts from a child, is the difference between drawing 
from a capital sum or the interest which that sum nor- 
mally yields. In the one case the original faculty is 
undisturbed, in the other it is decreased or obliterated. 
However, this is not the only or the worst result ; for 
the work of precocious children is not as a rule of very 
much benefit outside of the gratification of curiosity. 
Beyond this one fact, there is hardly any reason for 
allowing such children to show their abilities. More- 
over, there is hardly a single branch of human industry 
that they have in any way improved. 

In addition, and as something much more serious, 
is the unevenness, the one-sided growth of mind and 
character that must of necessity come about. Where 
a normal supply of energy is being drafted into the 
service of a certain comparatively small area of cere- 
bral tissue, the remaining portions must necessarily 
receive a smaller amount of nourishment. The per- 
son's whole habit of mind undergoes a change. His 
mental processes work within a small circle, and prog- 
ress beyond that circle may be gained only with the 
greatest difficulty. He realizes facts and thoughts 
very much as a child sees various colors through a 
tinted glass ; the real colors are thereby changed so 
far from their true shade as not to be recognizable. 



238 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

In physics one knows that a luminous ray in passing 
from one body to another undergoes a bending, a 
reflection. The angle at which one is unable to per- 
ceive the ray is called the critical angle. This angle 
of total reflection varies with different substances, 
being in some exceedingly small. In similar ways 
one may fitly say that in the mind of the man who 
in childhood was precocious, there is apt to be an 
angle of total reflection that is unusually narrow. 
He has suffered a series of changes which makes a 
broad development and a consequently broad life out 
of the question. By the very act of precocious con- 
sumption of nerve energy, normal metabolism must 
give way to unusual tissue changes, with abnormal 
symptoms in mind and character. 

In these times, one hears much talk about mental 
and moral degeneracy. The term is loosely used, 
and is meant to designate all sorts of people who show 
unfavorable psychical characteristics, especially in the 
ways of moral weakness, intellectual superficiality, lack 
of concentrated effort, a craving for the outlandish, 
the bizarre, even the shocking, elements in life. In- 
ordinate conceit is supposed to be one of its symp- 
toms, especially where there is no good ground for 
unusual self-praise. Recalcitration to discipline, re- 
pugnance to the settled and rigid conditions of life, 
are commonly encountered. Irreverence for rightful 
authority and the creation of new gods are supposed 



THE GENIUS AND THE DEFECTIVE 239 

to be commonly seen. In other words, a perturbation 
of the nervous system exists which does not permit 
of a natural expression of vitality. The theory is held 
that the strain and stress of modern life, with its 
whirl and rush, its astounding upheavals of settled 
ideas which gigantic improvements have introduced, 
its irreverence, its impatience, its thirst for luxury, 
have brought this condition of things into existence. 
Whether or not this is the cause, whether or not 
these characteristics flourish in greater abundance 
now then formerly, at all events, traits like them are 
merely evidences of poor development, of poorly nour- 
ished cerebral cells, of distorted streams of energy 
that are following the ragged lines of least resistance. 
This is exactly the result that one would expect from 
cerebral precocity ; it is the outcome of disturbed rela- 
tions which can be known only by the disturbance in 
their classic functions. Degeneracy is not a disease, 
it is merely a symptom, the cause of which is a defi- 
ance of ordinary laws which dominate the lowest as 
well as the highest of men. It may be exterminated, 
but only by a plan of life which looks out for primal 
conditions rather than remedial measures. As soon as 
the child's main business in life is seen to consist in 
proper eating and proper assimilation of food, in proper 
sleep, in proper recreation and exercise, in proper in- 
struction, in the right and healthy exercise of his emo- 
tions, as well as his intellect and body, the symptom 



240 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

must disappear. The child should no more be allowed 
to assume great burdens involving mental strain and 
excitement than he should be permitted to play with 
dynamite. The difference in the ultimate outcome is 
partly one of time. But one main fact holds good : 
great deeds require corresponding exertion. Where 
the economy, by its maturity and nice development, 
has acquired full power, such exertion is merely nor- 
mal and healthful exercise. When it is immature, 
unstable, unripe, such efforts exhaust its vitality, dis- 
tort its regular outlines, undermine its creative possi- 
bilities. The problem is not a hard one ; it requires 
nothing more than plain and clear and sane thought. 



CHAPTER X 

Institutional Life in the Development of the 
Child 

The care of children in institutions — what one 
might call the substitute care of children — comes 
next in importance to the care of them at home. In 
fact, it is only by comparing it to home training that 
one can judge of the worth of the discipline which an 
institution gives. Moreover, the ideal that should con- 
stantly be kept in mind is that of furnishing methods 
which will most surely bring about the results that 
home life of a high order is able to do. This has 
almost always seemed impossible ; the general respect 
for parental influence and authority has been so great 
that no adequate substitute for it has been considered 
possible. "Any home is better than a Home" has 
been the cry ; and even in cases of marked deficiency 
of favorable environment, the opinion is stoutly advo- 
cated that the interests of the State and the individ- 
uals concerned are best preserved by keeping, no 
matter what the circumstances, the family circle intact. 
Formerly this was held in so extreme a degree that 
R 241 



242 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

failure on the part of parents to provide properly for 
their children's physical and moral growth was not 
considered sufficient reason for breaking family ties. 
Flagrant instances of neglect, of cruelty, of viciousness, 
were regarded with complacency. The child was the 
father's chattel, existing under absolute rights of pos- 
session. And in recent times when the movement to 
establish children's aid societies began to assume a 
definite form, much difficulty was experienced in over- 
coming the feeling that the rights of parents were 
paramount. Therefore, where investigation revealed 
full evidence of immorality or almost fatal abuse, the 
cry still went up that " any home is better than a 
Home!" 

Now, however, things have changed somewhat. 
People recognize that the family is of the highest use 
to the State when children are so reared that their 
mental and physical faculties receive sufficient oppor- 
tunity to expand in a fairly decent fashion. They have 
come to see that parental authority is not necessarily 
wisely administered, but on the contrary may give 
unlimited opportunity for wrong-doing, that parental 
example may, instead of leading children in the ways 
of peace and health, drag them down to the lowest 
depths of misery and viciousness. Under such circum- 
stances the " home " becomes a plague-spot. Even un- 
der milder circumstances, but where rugged virtues do 
not flourish, the home may be so far from providing a 



INSTITUTIONAL LIFE ^43 

normal nutrition for body and mind that its value is 
doubtful. The need for a substitute then becomes im- 
perative, and the whole question resolves itself into an 
inquiry about the best methods of accomplishing the 
desired ends. 

In looking over the matter, the observer notices a 
curious fact : that the oldest and most civilized com- 
munities are not necessarily the ones that have made 
most progress. Rather, they are the most conserva- 
tive, where the belief in old-time rights is most firmly 
held, or where the feeling for non-interference is 
strongest. In such communities one is most apt to 
find great institutions for the care of orphaned and 
abused children, which are architecturally fine, richly 
endowed, which are sedulously visited by the chari- 
tably inclined. Nevertheless, in spite of these advan- 
tages, their wards commonly do not turn out well ; as 
a rule, they do not grow into men and women of the 
highest type. In fact, this is what people expect, and 
all manner of consideration for shortcomings in a per- 
son is made who has had the misfortune to grow up as 
an asylum child. The cry again is heard: "Any home 
is better than a Home ! " 

In dealing with institutions of this kind, one comes 
across certain phenomena which occur regularly in 
almost all cases. One finds large masses of children 
marked off from the rest of the community, commonly 
wearing a special uniform which emphasizes their 



244 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

segregation, controlled in the large majority of in- 
stances by a man or woman whose main excellence 
is a faculty of administrative discipline, which brings 
about an appearance of outward neatness and a show 
of meek submission on the part of the charges of the 
institution to the visiting board; one finds a hard and 
fast routine which being designed for the management 
of all is generally fitted for no one individual ; one finds 
that often useless and trivial occupations are taught, 
which tend to increase the institutional revenues and 
make a brave show of employing a large number of 
"hands"; one finds that the children are brought up 
in huge buildings where the ordinary duties of life are 
arranged on a wholesale plan, where the actual condi- 
tions of everyday existence are unknown, where the 
true value of individual independence, of money, of 
personal self-respect, of personal affection, are barely 
suggested. And where the State pays a per capita 
share of the expenses, one finds a disposition to get 
as many children into one institution as is possible ; 
for in reckoning the support of large numbers, the 
individual cost is in inverse ratio to the number sup- 
ported. As a result of all this, the ends to be expected 
in an advantageous development are not by any means 
kept in sight. 

One must keep in mind that the care of these chil- 
dren involves a different method of treatment than that 
of the ordinary child in the ordinary home. Many of 



INSTITUTIONAL LIFE 245 

them having come from an impoverished stock have a 
predisposition to weakness in mind and body, still more 
have lived their short lives in surroundings character- 
ized by want or ignorance or stupidity or viciousness. 
Many of.them bear the hall-mark of their most unfortu- 
nate environment. They are correspondingly ready to 
fall into developmental distortions and are correspond- 
ingly hard to be kept within the lines of a straight 
growth. Far more than the ordinary child should they 
be watched and nurtured, — not only for their own 
sakes, but also for that of the community of which 
they form an important part. When one comes to 
think that in the State of New York, one out of every 
two hundred and fifty-one of the population is sup- 
ported from the public funds, the necessity immedi- 
ately becomes apparent of properly caring for these 
wards of the State, to the end of converting them from 
incumbrances into useful, valuable citizens. The mere 
fact that they have no natural guardians makes the 
necessity of caring for them lie all the more heavily 
on the community which is ultimately affected by their 
successful or unsuccessful development. 

Keeping these things in mind, one can say very little 
for the methods now used in this State. Although we 
know that children follow their enveloping influences 
very closely, and that therefore their daily companions 
are important factors in determining what they are to 
be, nevertheless, the system in question puts dozens of 



246 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

children of the same age together, on much the same 
plan as similar kinds of merchandise are assorted. 
Naturally, there are no higher examples to be followed, 
and children do not progress so rapidly as under better 
auspices they would. Even in infancy one can plainly 
notice this fact. These little creatures look, act, and 
really are far otherwise than the ordinary baby in good 
surroundings. Their want of mental as well as physi- 
cal activity is so plainly apparent as to be visible even 
to non-professional observers. From such a source 
comes the remark that "institution babies are tolerably 
lethargic." They are lethargic because their vitality 
has been sapped away, and one might with equal truth 
say that institution babies are tolerably withered. 
Even more striking is a fact that can be vouched for 
by any physician who has had much experience in hos- 
pital wards for babies. Such patients languish in insti- 
tutions although their food and care are fairly good. 
In fact, the same food and care, if provided with the 
surroundings of a home, will often bring the little one 
to blooming health and vigor. The reason is not hard 
to find out. The gist of the matter is, that the care of 
a baby is not meant to be arranged on a wholesale 
plan. He needs personal attention, and without it 
his body withers. An even greater effect has a too 
strongly marked routine upon his mind. The routine 
means machine-like repetition, day after day and week 
after week, of the same or similar acts. It is the 



INSTITUTIONAL LIFE 24/ 

opposite of the change, the varying activity and the 
spontaneity of individual training. An adult whose 
growth is finished, whose organism is at rest, might 
possibly exist without much injury in a condition of 
stagnation. His needs lie mainly in the way of repair 
of used-up tissue. But with the growing infant or 
child, the demands are far greater. They look for the 
elaboration of entirely new material upon which func- 
tional development rests. And where such healthful 
exercise is deficient, the expected development cannot 
appear. Naturally, then, one finds that children massed 
in large institutions are backward, are prone to stu- 
pidity, are lacking in a healthy mental curiosity. Their 
spontaneity is crushed by rules and regulations that 
are not framed with a clear view to their best interests. 
In order to subserve those interests, the person in 
charge of the institution should be of remarkable 
strength of mind and character. By slow degrees 
people are beginning to appreciate the necessity of 
employing as teachers such persons as have proved 
themselves thoroughly capable. The opinion is slowly 
— but very slowly — gaining ground, that the real 
teacher is not some young woman in need of pin 
money, or a girl who wishes to keep herself busy in 
the time between graduation and marriage. The part 
of the public that pretends to think is steadily coming 
to feel that those who have control of numbers of 
children for an important part of each working day, 



248 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

should be carefully selected for this great responsibility 
by both training and natural fitness. The more chari- 
tably minded may hold that parents by the very fact 
of parenthood come to possess a special faculty for the 
training and care of their offspring. But with the 
teacher, who cannot pretend to have any reason for 
such a faculty, quite a different idea must be in force. 
With her, the matter is and should be merely that of a 
business, a vocation, at the most, a well-loved vocation. 
Therefore, she should have every possible advantage 
which may enable her to prosecute her duties in the 
best possible manner. If this is true of the ordinary 
teacher, a similar train of thought will more impera- 
tively apply to the superintendent of an institution for 
children. But it is with the greatest rarity that one 
finds the position conferred on any such principle of 
choice. The ordinary incumbent is a man who has had 
political training and political influence, or a superior 
sort of workman who has shown some manner of prac- 
tical ability, or a relative of a person in authority in the 
management. Among some of the superintendents of 
whom I know, there are retired or unsuccessful busi- 
ness men, a retired insurance agent, a carpenter, a for- 
mer watchman, an assistant matron in a hospital, two 
former teachers and two clergymen. While it is pos- 
sible that all of these persons may be active and zeal- 
ous to do what is right, — as far as they can see the 
right, — nevertheless, I seriously doubt that they have 



INSTITUTIONAL LIFE 249 

a respectable share of the special training and know- 
ledge which are absolutely necessary to the realization 
of the possibilities of their positions. 

As far as one can judge, their common feeling is one 
of full satisfaction when their institutions have no vio- 
lent outbreaks of epidemic diseases, when the children 
have a clean exterior, when they show the effects of 
wholesome drilling so that all of them can make the 
same sort of obeisance, can march meekly and in regu- 
lar order, can answer certain lists of questions without 
too much confusion. Most of these superintendents, 
I believe, feel that the children are very fortunate in 
having so much care, so many advantages, and that the 
fact of their being dependent upon charity should make 
them supremely thankful for any fate that is better 
than starvation. As a matter of fact, such a system is 
as unprofitable as one could possibly imagine. Society 
has the keenest interests in the outcome of these many 
lives, which have the prospect of inefficiency and pau- 
perism before them. For each has the same range of 
possibilities as more fortunate children, each one has 
the same liability to being crushed. In the hands of a 
very wise guardian they might have unlimited poten- 
tialities for good, and with a better system these wards 
of the State might come to be parts of its strongest 
bulwarks. The natural conclusion is, that the welfare 
of so many lives requires the highest skill for its care. 
The superintendent of an institution for children should 



250 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

represent the highest type of guardian that the com- 
munity can afford, a person who is able by training, 
experience and ability to have broad views, wise 
policies and a sympathetic discernment of character 
that will prevent his looking at his charges as so 
many little animals that are to be kept in subjection. 
Of course, one might say that no human wisdom is 
great enough to govern the development of every 
individual child in a large institution. That may be 
true ; but it is not more true than that a superior man 
can accomplish more than an inferior. It is hard to 
mark off the limits of what the properly selected person 
can do. But besides this one factor, there are other 
considerations to be taken into account. A child who 
is brought up in huge dormitories and dining-rooms, in 
marble-paved, steam-heated halls, who sees the world 
through the bars of a fence, who is inspected with the 
same curiosity as the animals in the Zoo, who goes to 
bed with no more caressing sound than the clang of a 
retiring bell, who receives no more affection than the 
share that a stranger can distribute among dozens or 
hundreds, who lives and moves as part of a great 
machine, has little chance of developing in a way that 
will call into life all the range of activities of which his 
organization is susceptible. Therefore, it has been 
said, truly enough, that such children are lethargic, 
show " a want of pluck, dependence on others, inability 
to shift for themselves, characteristics which develop 



INSTITUTIONAL LIFE 25 1 

into the grown pauper." When such children are old 
enough to be put out in the world, their chances 
of survival must be pitiably small ; they must be 
thoroughly unprepared to fight the battles that await 
every man and woman ; they may be considered an- 
alogous to immigrants from another world. To expect 
from them the same grasp of affairs, the same self- 
restraint, the same tenacity of purpose, and the same 
moderation in conduct that we look for in ordinary, 
more fortunate citizens, is not quite logical. Thus they 
are forced into a class by themselves ; although the 
world will not allow them to transgress its rules, never- 
theless, it does not furnish a special code that is better 
adapted to their peculiar condition. 

As things now are, there is no personal responsibility 
for the children in large institutions. Those in control 
are sedulously guarding the institiitio7i rather than the 
individual children for whom the institution exists. 
Most of these institutions are controlled by private 
persons who have absolute authority in their manage- 
ment. This might be good enough, if such persons 
were generally in possession of the most desirable 
qualifications for the positions. But, as a rule, they 
are men who have been selected on account of money 
donations or similar reasons. The consequent result 
is that these kind and charitable persons feel most in- 
terest in the business affairs of the institution ; they 
believe that these affairs are the main objects of care ; 



252 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

partly, perhaps, because such are the things which they 
best understand. In the meanwhile, there is no one to 
look after the individual child, who is no more thought 
of than is a single lamb in a large flock. As yet, there 
is hardly enough interest felt in this important part of 
the population to call forth a general and constant 
inquiry into methods of management. Occasionally, 
some one utters a protest, such as Mrs. Josephine Shaw 
Lowell did in the report of the New York Board of 
Charities for 1890. There she said: "New York City 
supports an average population of about 14,000 boys 
and girls, at an expense of ^1,500,000 annually, in 
institutions controlled by private individuals. . . . 
There is no official of New York City who knows or 
has a right to know whether these children are trained 
in idleness or industry, in virtue or vice." 

Even if one rejects so harsh a possibility as being 
trained in vice, one has still a multitude of conditions 
that may be almost as bad. Among them one is 
bound to find deceit, a want of open frankness, a lack 
of principle, a disposition to cringe and fawn, that are 
destructive to a healthy mental tone. Most of all are 
these acquired characteristics not distinctive of the 
state of mind which produces fine men and women. 
From the start, such children are condemned to the 
likelihood of weak and petty characters, which the 
experiences of mature life are not likely to strengthen. 

As far as the question of industrial training in large 



INSTITUTIONAL LIFE 253 

institutions goes, very little that is pleasant can be 
said. In most cases, the occupations are those involv- 
ing but little skill, they are generally of a low grade, 
and do little to train either mind or body. The chil- 
dren are kept at a method of employment that rarely 
varies, that blunts and stupefies nascent energy by 
violations of almost all the rules of healthful develop- 
ment. Steady work in such ways as picking hair, 
making paper bags and the many similarly trivial 
things which one here finds, may, especially when 
well paid for by the charitably inclined, add consid- 
erable amounts to the revenues of the institution. 
But this is gained at the expense of brain and nerve 
energy in the child. But even where the nature of 
the work is more profitable, one may still be sure that 
the children cannot gain thereby. For the essential 
characteristic of the child body and mind is the in- 
ability to concentrate attention or efforts excepting in 
a small degree and for a short time. Thus, no steady 
employment, even where it does not make a slave of 
the child, can do anything but harm. To obtain a 
proper diversity of employment is practically impos- 
sible in a great asylum, even where the ruling powers 
would be willing to follow any plan that could improve 
the results of their work. One should keep in mind 
that children, whose permanent welfare is a matter of 
importance, should never be expected to do work for 
the sake of an immediate money return. For such 



254 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

work requires too much concentration of effort and 
attention to be undertaken with safety. Even under 
the luxurious surroundings of a modern asylum, such 
work has a number of features in common with 
"child-slavery." 

Too much stress cannot be laid upon the isolating 
circumstances of institutional life. Nothing is easier 
or more certain in results than to crush and cow a 
child by marking him off with unfortunate circum- 
stances from the common life of young children. 
Even in so mild a case as some slight physical de- 
formity, where the child's attention is thrown in upon 
himself, he straightway begins to feel himself apart 
from the rest of the world, he shrinks together like 
a withered flower. He loses confidence in himself, 
feels that he is in an unfavorable and subordinate posi- 
tion ; he comes to believe that the world is a harsh 
and bitter place for him and such as he. In the case 
of an "institution child," such effects are many times 
magnified. His home, his dress, the demeanor and 
discipline of everyday life, all impress him with the 
belief that fate has dealt differently and more harshly 
with him than with other people whom he sees. He 
realizes that his position is one of subjection, and of 
necessity he must crouch down to the level of a con- 
quered soul. In such an environment, it would re- 
quire a remarkable child to give a good account of 
himself, especially from the standpoint of final devel- 



INSTITUTIONAL LIFE 255 

opment. Even the one detail of a common uniform 
is sufficient in itself to shut out the light from a 
child's mind and soul, and turn him into a creature 
who really needs one's pity. But when his little ex- 
istence is filled with such details, when his environ- 
ment keeps constantly in his mind the facts of his 
unfortunate and contemptible position, he becomes 
a victim of a system which chokes and starves while 
it pretends to nourish. It is, in truth, a sort of 
slavery, but slavery that is so tricked out and bediz- 
ened as to pass for a joyous philanthropy. One of 
the results of the whole unfortunate problem is that 
the community, while thinking to rescue its children 
— an integral part of itself — from a miserable and 
unprofitable life, is really doing a great deal in the 
way of making such a life inevitable. 

However, a better method than this time-honored 
one is easy to find. Knowing as much as we do 
about the necessities of a child's development, being 
certain that child-life flourishes best in a natural home, 
we must find the solution of caring for the State's 
wards by providing surroundings that will closely imi- 
tate those of the home. Unquestionably, this is pos- 
sible, and, to a certain extent, it has been done in 
various places. The noteworthy success which Herr 
Wichern's Rauhe Haus at Hamburg achieved, dupli- 
cated to a certain extent at the Metteay institution 
at Tour, showed clearly enough the path that prog- 



256 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

ress is to take. Here a real attempt was made to 
form a home. Instead of great and cumbersome in- 
stitutions, the plan of forming small colonies was 
begun, which reminds one strongly of the schools 
which Pestalozzi and Froebel formed. The plan was 
devised for the "substitution of individual care for 
mechanical manipulation of masses and the develop- 
ment of energy, nature, wit, and common sense that 
follow from the separation into small groups with 
whom the teacher or nurse comes into personal con- 
tact." So good an example was bound to be tried 
elsewhere. To be sure, in many cases the efforts 
were tentative, but, nevertheless, they showed prog- 
ress, and obtained better results than under the older 
system. But if one had no other or more modern 
models than those of Pestalozzi's and Froebel's schools, 
most of all before a general acquaintance with their 
wise methods and fine results brought too many 
scholars, one would be close upon the right manner 
of caring for orphaned and abused children. The 
motto that was ever before the minds of these two 
lovable and loving men was : " Come, let us live with 
our children." They really shared their lives with 
their charges, — studied with them, worked with them 
in all manner of ordinary ways, played with them, ate 
and slept with them. Between teacher and scholar, 
or one might better say guardian and ward, there 
existed the common bonds of mutual love, mutual 



INSTITUTIONAL LIFE 257 

welfare, mutual interests. These children, instead of 
having a parent's oversight for a small part of the 
day and the cold comfort of a stranger's attention for 
the greater part, associated constantly with a foster- 
father who was much wiser, more thoughtful, than 
most decent parents are. There were a constant play 
and exercise of mind and body. And not until the 
system by its own growth grew unwieldy, and thus 
lost its proper characteristics, did it cease to serve as 
one of the best methods of rearing children with 
which we are acquainted. 

Coming back to present times and instances, let 
us cite the cases of Victoria and New South Wales. 
These colonies, in an attempt to improve their ways, 
sought to abolish institutions by a system of board- 
ing out their orphan children. This method, while 
too provisional and not sufficiently homogeneous, had 
some advantages in doing away with the crowd- 
ing of children together in large numbers. Out- 
side of everything else, they gained at least a recog- 
nition of the important fact that children may not 
with safety be herded together in large numbers. 
The value of this idea began to be felt even beyond 
these colonies, — even in conservative Europe, — and 
gradually concessions were made to it. These con- 
cessions came slowly, as one would expect ; for old 
communities with difficulty change their ways. But 
even more thoroughly did it make an impress in the 
s 



258 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

United States. Massachusetts, in particular, tried to 
better itself, and was the first to institute a State 
system of preventive work by boarding out its orphans 
and deserted children. Some good results were almost 
immediately apparent. In the important detail of in- 
fant mortality, a startling change occurred. In the 
first year of the new system, the percentage of deaths 
fell from ninety-seven per cent to fifty per cent. In 
the following year, it declined to thirty per cent, and 
after that varied from ten to twenty per cent. 

Still another effect was promptly felt. Where the 
old-time system was in vogue, with its large institu- 
tions which indiscriminately received undeserving as 
well as deserving cases, children were too easily en- 
trusted to its care. Proximity to the children and 
ease in communicating with them, as well as the 
seeming ease of reclaiming them whenever the par- 
ents pleased, made commitments to the asylum very 
frequent, much more frequent than was necessary. 
But where the large institutions were abolished and 
the children were scattered over a large territory, the 
feeling of parental care sprang up again, with the 
natural result that offspring were not so lightly aban- 
doned. Thus in New York State, under our anti- 
quated system, the community supports one in every 
two hundred and fifty-one of the population ; but in 
Massachusetts, with a wiser method, the ratio was 
reduced to one in nine hundred and ninety-five. And 



INSTITUTIONAL LIFE 259 

in Michigan, under a still more rigorous rule, only one 
in ten thousand required support. To clinch the argu- 
ment on the other side, one might cite the case of 
New Hampshire, which recently decided to support 
dependent children in private institutions at the public 
expense, with the same freedom from restrictions as 
one sees in New York and California. As one would 
expect, the regular results of increased dependence 
began to assert themselves. In addition, it is in place 
to quote the success of the Lyman School and the 
State Industrial School at Lancaster, both carried on 
under the methods in use in Massachusetts, where 
the success has been noteworthy. They have proved 
how possible it is to reduce the evils from which 
society has so long suffered, to convert worthless 
material into approximately valuable material, to make 
a large proportion of the deserted, the abused, the 
practically brutalized population into decent citizens. 
Such a change is a truly remarkable one, and has a 
bearing upon the future welfare and improvement of 
society that cannot be too highly appreciated. 

Keeping these instances in mind, and combining 
them with the more theoretical truths of a child's 
development which we know, the way in which the 
wards of the State should be brought up is fairly 
clear. All thought of massing them in large insti- 
tutions, whether conducted under private or public 
management, should be absolutely put aside. The 



260 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

more one appreciates how feeble in stable conditions 
and how strong in potential changes an infant is, the 
more clearly one sees that he should have more than 
food and clothing. The additional element may be 
supplied by individual care and the willingness to 
undergo self-sacrifice which comes from personal 
attachment. Such care and attachment the normal 
woman, fairly well brought up, is capable and willing 
to give. One of the main needs is to entrust the chil- 
dren to as good a representative of normal womanhood 
as it is possible to find. That it is easily possible to 
realize the opportunity to enlist a high class of women 
in this work is clearly proved by the readiness with 
which such women agree to adopt young children, to 
take upon themselves the whole responsibility of their 
physical and mental care. Mrs. Richardson, of the 
Massachusetts State Board of Lunacy and Charity, 
gives evidence on this point, when she says that "in 
recent years the opportunities for obtaining homes by 
legal adoption into good families have been so great 
that it is rarely that a child reaches the age of three 
years without being permanently and satisfactorily 
provided for." One might confidently say that these 
opportunities would be still more plentiful if women 
were convinced — as they doubtless will be — of the 
safety of adopting an infant of unknown parentage. 
When the community come to realize that a child's 
environment is as a rule more important than his 



INSTITUTIONAL LIFE 26 1 

heredity, there will be still less necessity for great 
infant asylums. In fact, the only institution of this 
kind that is permissible is a receiving station, a sort 
of clearing house, which shall be used as headquarters 
where the routine business of placing children and 
overseeing them is carried on. 

Such children as are not adopted should be put in 
homes of not more than ten little ones. These homes 
could be grouped in colonies so that the proper authori- 
ties could easily oversee them. Supplies could be pur- 
chased in large quantities and delivered on requisition 
according to need. Each home could be immediately 
controlled by a cottage " mother," who should have a 
natural and full authority. The children should be kept 
in thi» manner until they were able by apprenticeship or 
individual work to support themselves. The close asso- 
ciation of years would form the strongest bonds between 
the foster-mother and her charges, and the small num- 
ber of children entrusted to each woman would make 
possible the growth of affection, individual interest, and 
the feeling of responsibility. Each child, as he grew 
up, would go through the ordinary useful experience of 
the ordinary home, the only experience which is able 
to fit him for the duties of worker, spouse and parent. 
Here would be a feeling of solidarity, a sense of active 
and passive ownership, a happy conviction of having a 
place in the world. The education of the children 
could be conducted in village schools in the same way 



262 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

that public education is generally administered. And 
the children would finally come to take their places in 
the world with connections and memories that would be 
as binding, as well known, and as respectable as those 
of people with a natural and honorable parentage. 

The main object of these cottage homes would be to 
counterfeit, as closely as possible, the real home as we 
know it, in its healthy phases. The same methods of 
control, of occupation, of clothing, of food, of recreation, 
could be employed in one as well as in the other. The 
conditions of actual, practical life would be equally 
illustrated in both. The number of children in each 
home would be so restricted that each child would 
receive a fairly proper amount of attention. As a 
result, his character and individuality would have an 
opportunity to assert themselves. At the same time, 
the very important factor of the finer feelings would 
not be neglected. For the number of children living 
together would be small enough to encourage the 
closest interdependencies between them and the cot- 
tage mother. One could look forward to the future of 
these children with the same confidence with which 
one regards the outlook of well-cared-for children in 
ordinary life. 

Another fact of importance is that such work would 
appeal to many women of decided abilities who are 
either idle or engaged in less valuable work. For the 
same reasons that the professional nursing of the sick 



INSTITUTIONAL LIFE 263 

is now so eagerly taken up by a high class of women, 
this calling would be popular. But in addition, there 
are many additional reasons, based upon the opportu- 
nity for exercising affection, for forming much more 
permanent ties, for having a very definite influence in 
the world, why an even higher grade of women would 
gladly assume this calling as a life work. Most of all, 
if the applicants for positions as foster-mothers received 
an equally valuable training as trained nurses enjoy, 
the results of their work might gratify very high 
expectations. 

That children brought up under substitute care 
can have a successful training has been proved by 
the course pursued at Girard College. Although this 
institution has the disadvantage of great size, as well 
as the fact that its charges are not accepted in in- 
fancy, thus depriving them of the good effects of 
careful and systematic oversight in their earliest 
years, nevertheless, the general methods of govern- 
ment are so superior to what one usually finds in in- 
stitutions for orphans, that the results are, after all, 
not surprising. Children may not be accepted in 
infancy, but, on the other hand, their residence in 
the institution may continue until they are of eigh- 
teen years of age. Their guardians and instructors 
are of a high class, and on account of their perma- 
nent and responsible positions, as well as their men- 
tal superiority, come to have a real interest in the 



264 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

boys, that shows itself in the existence of affectionate 
relationship between pupil and teacher. The inmates, 
instead of feeling that they are outcasts and pariahs, 
have a true pride in their surroundings, and act it 
out in their later lives. For such reasons as these, 
President Fetteroff is able to say: "Judging from 
what I see of our graduates, I am inclined to think 
that they do better in life than the same number of 
boys picked from the public schools." And this 
occurs, in spite of the non-natural and artificial en- 
vironment produced by guardians who take up the 
work as a profession. It does not need an unusually 
clear sight to see that if the State's children were 
from the beginning brought up under still more favor- 
able auspices, if they enjoyed the blessing of indi- 
vidual care, affection and training, if their associations 
and examples were of the same nature as one finds 
in good families, if their practical experiences were 
such as to fit them for the demands of actual life, 
one would not have to think of institutions for chil- 
dren as the breeding nests of pauperism, vice, and 
crime. In the community, as it now exists, there 
is every element which is necessary to the realization 
of this plan ; but instead of being wisely used, it is 
wasted. Too much money is now spent ; too much 
effort on the part of philanthropic persons of all sorts 
is scattered over a ragged system ; too many lives 
are spoiled. In the face of all this, so long as the 



INSTITUTIONAL LIFE 265 

general public is willing to learn and apply some 
plain biological truths, there is a prospect of an im- 
mense betterment. Much of the so-called defective 
population can be turned into really valuable citizens, 
who not only would render unnecessary the vast ex- 
penses now necessary for charities and corrections, 
but would also be fertile producers and upholders of 
what is conservative and fine in the community. 
The sooner we come to forget the idea that the de- 
pendent children of the State are a burden, and 
come to recognize that they are so much raw mate- 
rial waiting to be developed, the sooner shall we gain 
the reward of a wise self-interest, of common sense, 
of broad ideals. 



CHAPTER XI 
The Profession of Maternity 

The remarkable progress of the higher education of 
women is a matter of everyday comment. Notwith- 
standing the opposition which every comparatively new 
movement naturally meets, the belief in it has grown in 
every direction ; so that it is common to find families 
where the young women have had the same training 
as their brothers, where, moreover, they have shown 
so good an intellectual receptivity that the higher 
education of women, as is claimed by its adherents, 
has thoroughly justified itself. Besides this, so many 
women have entered professional callings of all kinds, 
that the old-time claim of difference in intellectual 
function between them and men has seemingly been 
forced out of existence. In addition, one meets not 
only women doctors, women lawyers, architects and 
preachers, but also those who have entered the non- 
professional employments. And now it seems that 
there is no occupation belonging exclusively to men. 
While this tendency on the face of it is sufficiently 
remarkable, nevertheless, the change in methods and 
opinions which underlie it are still more noteworthy. 

The reproach of uselessness, frivolity and petty or- 

266 



THE PROFESSION OF MATERNITY 267 

namentation has been laid against the education of 
women even more than against that of their brothers 
and fathers. For years back the charge was made that 
the main object of their training was decorative. And 
there is no doubt that the charge was true. Not only 
were the methods of instruction exceedingly faulty, 
but also the subjects of instruction were plainly de- 
signed for the effect it might have upon the estimation 
in which the girls were held. The main consideration 
sought was to make them seem educated, refined, 
endued with the characteristics of the most favorably 
placed class in the community. Such a class was 
supposed to be the rich, the leisure class, people who 
were beyond the need of useful and productive work, 
who therefore had the opportunity of placing most 
stress upon the refinements, the luxuries and the 
unnecessary things in life. The fact that these per- 
sons were able to buy the services of those who did 
the common, everyday work of the world placed the 
latter in a seemingly inferior position. Each person, 
feeling himself somewhat higher in the scale than 
those in the class below him, and aiming to equal the 
circumstances and opportunities of the rank above 
him, strove to obtain the characteristic marks of supe- 
riority. These marks were usually evidences of luxury, 
luxury-fetiches y things which argued the possession of 
more than what was really essential to life or even 
comfort. 



268 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

This is one oL the main reasons why so many 
unnecessary elements have been included in a girl's 
education. For this reason they have been taught 
a smattering of French, German and Italian ; have 
been taught a trifle about art and music ; have been 
instructed in the petty details of deportment and 
elocution, of the humanities. Their demonstrations 
and use of abilities in these directions have rarely had 
any real, practical value in the conduct of their lives ; 
but, on the contrary, have added sources of complexity, 
dissatisfaction and inefficiency. Their attempts at 
piano-playing, at drawing and painting, at an intelli- 
gent demonstration of literary and scientific knowledge, 
were far from being elevating to themselves or others. 
Outside of being luxury-fetiches, they had no good 
reason for existence. Most of all has the training 
of girls been not appropriate to the highest work of 
which they were capable, of which, moreover, society 
stood in greatest need. Therefore, with the spread 
of information and the broadening of ideas, the ne- 
cessity of giving them a better and more useful 
training became more and more apparent. When, on 
account of changing industrial conditions, the com- 
petition in life became severer, when a disposition 
to laxer ideas concerning the sanctity of rank and 
caste showed itself, when women began to feel the 
need economically and morally of occupying positions 
of greater productive value, the tendency to branch 



THE PROFESSION OF MATERNITY 269 

out in any and every line of activity grew with a 
remarkable vigor. One might with safety say, that 
they have not observed the bounds of moderation ; 
that in searching for new opportunities, they have at 
times overstepped the limits set by their functional 
and social position. As a result, the fields of work 
formerly held exclusively by men have been more and 
more energetically invaded by women ; industrially 
the barriers which separated the sexes have been 
assiduously assailed, until there is now no real line 
at which one may say that a man's work ends and 
a woman's begins. 

Naturally, there has been a lack of moderation in 
all this ; the hand has swung too far around the dial, 
until its direction is as eccentric as it ever was. The 
principal consideration is, that in the strain and stress 
of active life, no regard is held for what industries 
may be most profitable to the individual woman and 
the community. The great idea seems to be that 
she must do something, must earn money, must as- 
sume a certain share of active responsibility by going 
out into the world and grappling with its harsh con- 
ditions. To the former ideas of luxury-fetichism she 
has added the idols of theoretic equality, until the 
resulting worship is, indeed, a remarkable mixture. 
Such equality has ever been a strange thing. It 
mixes real with fancied conditions ; true with ficti- 
tious needs in human nature ; true psychological laws 



270 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

with preconceived notions of necessity. It is apt to 
long for a state of things that could not be profitable 
to any one. It is blind, and seeks to go its way 
regardless of limitations and obstacles that wisdom 
prompts one to take into account. This idea of equal- 
ity, in its jealous avarice, tries to obtain a privilege 
or a right not because it is in itself desirable, but, 
rather, because one class of people and not another pos- 
sesses it. The question of the value of such a privilege 
seems not to be worthy of consideration. Thus, in 
the matter of the so-called higher education, the 
demand for a woman's learning Greek, for exam- 
ple, is usually made not because the study of that lan- 
guage is thought to bring with it any considerable 
value, but merely because young men study it. There 
is no greater respect now than formerly for the an- 
cient languages ; in all likelihood there is even less. 
Doubtless there is good enough ground for this, 
because the smattering which the ordinary college 
graduate possesses is not worthy of great apprecia- 
tion. The main reason for this demand is, after all, a 
reason of defiance, of insistence upon outward forms, 
of proving that there is and ought to be no distinc- 
tion between one person and another, between men 
and women. 

But in spite of disadvantages such as have been 
alluded to, there has been one step of immense im- 
portance, one stride in the right direction. With the 



THE PROFESSION OF MATERNITY 2/1 

competition by women in industrial markets, the neces- 
sity of careful and exact preparation for the work in 
hand has to a certain extent received recognition. The 
world has always recognized this in regard to men, 
who unconsciously and as a matter of course follow 
the idea in their training for active life. From the 
highest to the lowest, they expect to obtain a logical 
preparation for a certain work before entering upon 
its duties ; and so radical is this necessity supposed 
to be that the man who disregards it would in many 
cases suffer both legal and social penalties. The en- 
gineer who tried to run a locomotive without a proper 
training and knowledge, the physician who undertook 
the treatment of disease, the dressmaker who risked 
the value of the customer's materials, the architect 
who dared to build structures that might endanger 
other people's lives and money, — these, or any other 
workers, who assume responsibilities for which they 
are not fitted, have been and are severely punished 
for their lack of preparation and the recklessness of 
their undertakings. Moreover, in proportion to the 
importance of the interests at stake have the punish- 
ments — both legal and social — been set. It accords 
with conceptions of justice that responsibilities should 
not be undertaken without good reason for believing 
that there is a sufficient basis of capability present 
upon which to base the prospect of approximately 
fair success. 



272 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

Here is one of the greatest faults in our methods of 
preparing women for active life ; and in this respect 
their preparation still differs radically from that of their 
brothers. A young man's training is a combination of 
utility and decoration, with the elements of utility in 
predominance. The sentiment for the greater claims 
of utility has been so strongly insisted upon that there 
has been danger of losing sight of the value of the 
cultural element. In the education of young women 
the opposite is still held, even where the "higher" 
education has asserted itself. Here, the principal 
object seems to be an elaboration of the old-time aim, — 
an ambition to give the young woman an intellectual 
experience that is distinctive, unusual, characteristic of 
luxury rather than utility. A young man's training 
is designed to further his ability to accomplish definite 
work in the world ; his sister's is still arranged on the 
plan of making her appear better cared for, more 
advantageously placed, better apparelled in mental gar- 
ments than her neighbors. There is little or no view 
of a finer preparation for a life work, of augmenting her 
real utility in the world. Therefore, it is quite natural 
that when, on account of necessity or choice, she 
attempts to broaden her horizon, the only way that 
seems open to her is in some industrial pursuit by 
which she comes into competition with her brother, 
and divides with him the possible money-rewards of 
the business world. 



THE PROFESSION OF MATERNITY 273 

In spite of the fact that women have taken upon 
themselves so many new activities, in spite of the fact 
that they are often capable of earning a respectable 
wage, one is met by the strange fact that their efforts 
have not, on the whole, brought greater ease and physi- 
cal comfort to the working part of the community. 
Competition is severer than before, the struggle to 
exist is fiercer than ever before. Not only is it said 
that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, 
but also it is claimed that a greater amount of exertion 
than in former times is necessary to keep up the stand- 
ard of the great middle class, the real foundation of 
the social fabric. The question consequently arises, 
whether the new activities of women pay ; whether the 
world is really the better for their change of condition. 
Many practically minded people answer this in the 
negative, claiming that for every woman who obtains 
a position which a man formerly held, the family that 
is dependent upon the man's exertions is left, tempo- 
rarily at least, without the means of livelihood. More- 
over, they add, the influx of women into an industry 
is the signal for decrease in wages. They go on to 
explain that this fall in wages results from the facts 
that women have fewer burdens, that they use less judg- 
ment in their work than men, and that, since they 
remain in their positions only until they have a satis- 
factory opportunity to marry, they are less permanent. 
While marriage means greater steadiness and reliability 



274 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

in the man, in the woman it means resignation from 
the position to which she has become trained. For 
such and other allied reasons, it is held, she is from 
the beginning less valuable potentially to her employers 
than the male competitor. 

But a further consideration arises which overshadows 
the action and the fate of the woman who partly or 
wholly earns her own living. The large majority of 
women of all sorts marry. They do this because it 
seems to them and the world their highest place and 
function, where they will be of most worth to them- 
selves and the community. The mere fact that in 
this way a woman comes to have a controlling voice 
in a household, that in her hands lies the making 
or unmaking of her children's careers, that being the 
centre of a household she becomes the centre of a 
widely radiating influence, — all this is a matter of 
supreme importance. It is unnecessary to demonstrate 
that her position as wife and mother is the highest 
which she could possibly attain. Not only has the 
world done that most thoroughly, but also nature 
has definitely provided against any refutation of it. 
Thereupon the question follows, whether the course 
of modern effort and modern training has raised the 
general standard of her efficiency as a wife and mother. 
The whole matter resolves itself into an inquiry con- 
cerning the requirements in ability to which a woman 
who wishes to embody a high type of wife and mother 



THE PROFESSION OF MATERNITY 275 

must answer. Even more may the subject be sim- 
plified ; for, since the maternal duties include and 
overweigh the uxorial, the natural conclusion must 
be that the woman who best knows how to rear her 
children is the one who occupies the highest place 
in the world ; the inquiry may then be confined to the 
ideas and methods of best attaining this end. One 
would suppose, in this age of universal improvements, 
of changing customs, that matters of so much impor- 
tance would be the first in the mind of every woman, 
especially every mother. The methods of past times, 
with their burdensome decorations, are nowadays 
treated with so little reverence and have been so 
much developed into the methods of to-day that with- 
out thought the conclusion would hold that the chil- 
dren of this time should have a wiser regimen than 
their ancestors at a like age ; and likewise that the 
women of to-day ought to show a better discipHne, a 
wider scope of view, a wiser application of right prin- 
ciples in the performance of their higher duties than 
ever before. 

Therefore, one is surprised to find that the ex- 
pected improvement in this most important function 
does not exist. In other respects women have un- 
doubtedly made progress. They have been energetic 
enough in assimilating ideas in intellectual and artistic 
culture, in politics, in the matter of their "rights," 
in business. But this very energy, instead of indue- 



2/6 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

ing a cognate energy in the line of maternal duties, 
seemingly has turned their attention from them. By 
a strange lack of logic, they have not applied to this 
subject their acquired conceptions of the necessity 
of training and disciphne, so that a young woman 
unhesitatingly assumes the greatest responsibilities 
with no further preparation than her grandmother pos- 
sessed. What is even sadder is that there is no 
perception of the necessity of such preparation. Thus 
a girl is graduated from school, having a smattering 
of literature, languages, music, grammar, mathematics, 
which have not been taught in their physiological 
order nor in a manner to give the best amount of 
normal mental exercise, and straightway considers her- 
self competent to have the complete charge, the full- 
est authority, the main decision in all matters of 
health and development, physical training and spirit- 
ual culture of the children who may in the natural 
order of things become her offspring. When on ac- 
count of weakness, indolence, social duties, or what 
she considers the dignity of her position, she feels 
that some or all of the care of the child should be 
taken off her hands, she hires some strange girl or 
woman, usually of the social and intellectual grade 
of the peasant, to act as a sort of foster-mother. If 
this foster-mother, by whatever means she may know, 
is able to keep the child quiet, if she does not too 
palpably abuse him, if she tells him any and all sorts 



THE PROFESSION OF MATERNITY 277 

of tales, — no matter what her language, her supersti- 
tions, or her unformed ideas may be, — she is consid- 
ered a fit and able nurse, who is doing everything that 
the parents can reasonably ask of her. 

If this seems a harsh characterization, scrutiny will 
show that it is not overdrawn. Indeed, the mother 
herself, in many ways, presents no great improvement 
upon it. Whatever training she may have had has not 
been of the kind to realize or cope with the problems 
which are bound to confront her. These problems are 
matters of physiology, psychology, hygiene, biology. 
And because they are called by long names does not 
lessen their importance. And not only is a knowledge 
of these subjects necessary, but also it is desirable that 
one should cultivate the state of mind which makes a 
useful consideration of them easy and natural. The 
method of thought which one must use in dealing with 
them requires no unusual power of mind ; but it does 
call for a fair amount of regulated thought, of discipline, 
of willingness to abide by a definite and logical relation 
of cause and effect. These are elements which, unfort- 
unately, the ordinary young woman, in attempting to 
fulfil her maternal duties, is not prepared to use. 

In the first place, she should have some idea of the 
groundwork of biology. She should be acquainted with 
the natural history of animal forms ; she should know 
something of the wonderful development of cell life ; 
she should be able to understand the rudimentary laws, 



2/8 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

at least, of the correlation of organic forces. Such 
things are absolutely essential to a knowledge of the 
multitudinous influences which go to make up the sum 
of the child's nutrition, to the building up or the tear- 
ing down of the minute cells which in their complexity 
make up the completed mind and body. Here is a 
study which is more than interesting — it is even 
fascinating, which abounds in romantic interest, which 
carries with it a careful and patient exercise of the 
reasoning faculty that is of prime importance. There 
is the same need of this knowledge as there is of the 
foundations upon which the superstructure of any pro- 
fession is raised. As well might an architect be igno- 
rant of the minute and gross characteristics of the 
stone which he uses, or a manufacturer of the raw 
materials of which his products are made. Not other- 
wise is one able to know the full meaning of physical 
life, — how it begins, continues and decays. Surely not 
otherwise can a mother know how to care for the won- 
derful development of the infant whose whole life 
depends upon her knowledge and foresight. If she 
were able to note the marvellous growth and changes 
in the tender cotyledons of a plant, the sensitive de- 
meanor of the blood-corpuscles in a frog's circulation, 
the occurrence of chlorophyl granules and the changes 
which their presence brings, she certainly would be 
in a better position to appreciate the workings of her 
baby's body, more able intelligently to encourage favor- 



THE PROFESSION OF MATERNITY 279 

able and discourage unfavorable influences. Her sense 
of the importance, the sacredness of trust which her 
relationship puts upon her would be vastly increased. 
And as a result, her duties would be ever so much 
better performed. 

At the same time, a thorough knowledge of physi- 
ology is fully as essential. If the same amount of time 
that is now devoted to the stupefying study of gram- 
mar, of the battles of some ancient war-lord whose 
main claim to distinction was a faculty for oppressing 
and killing off the peasantry on his lands, of the intri- 
cate casuistries of so-called mental and moral philoso- 
phy, were given to an understanding of the functions 
for the human body, its methods of reaction and the 
phenomena of its metabolism, the benefits of the 
change would be too great to be easily computed. 
This change would mean a knowledge of what most, 
rather than of what least, concerns one. Comparing 
great things with small, it would be analogous to the 
relative importance of knowing, on the one hand, all 
the necessary details of one's household, upon which 
the comfort, health and happiness of the inmates rest, 
and, on the other, of being acquainted with the petty 
political vicissitudes of a remote South American city. 
In making such a choice there is no doubt on which 
side any sensible person should stand. And likewise, 
in an impartially considered scheme of education for a 
girl, there is as little uncertainty concerning the value 



280 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

of the study of physiology. When the girl becomes a 
mother, she would not be apt, in the most important 
matters of life, to depend upon the ignorance of a 
nurse-maid, the garrulous superstition of uninformed 
neighbors, or the ofttimes partial and one-sided instruc- 
tion of her attending physician, who, on account of her 
very ignorance, is unable to give more than incomplete 
instruction. With a proper education she would know 
the meaning of the words food and sleep ; she would 
know something of their overwhelming importance 
upon the future being and career of her child, who in 
his turn is to be one of the world's citizens, with full 
capacity for good and evil. Knowing what were nor- 
mal functions, she would be able to recognize and 
guard against deviations from them. No day would 
pass in which she would not find opportunity to exer- 
cise self-restraint, keen observation and sensible know- 
ledge in furthering the normal and healthful evolution 
of her child. In proportion to her approximation to a 
really high standard, this evolution ought to stand for 
her as the greatest thing in the world. 

If the laws governing the body are of so much im- 
portance, those controlling the mental action are fully 
as worthy of consideration. To know how the mind 
works, the order of its unfolding, the relative impor- 
tance of the various elements which go to make a nice 
equilibrium, — these things are of no little value. In 
the presence of a knowledge of psychology, there would 



THE PROFESSION OF MATERNITY 28 1 

not be so much confusion as to what children should 
learn, hear and see. The probable effect of the various 
experiences in life would not be so problematical, and a 
greater freedom in relation would exist between child 
and parent. At the same time, an intelligent supervi- 
sion of the processes of growth, the gradual unfolding of 
the little one's mind, would be exceedingly stimulating 
to the mother. It would weightily impress her with 
the nascent possibilities of her child, with the responsi- 
bilities which she has taken upon her, with the solemn 
import of life. How vastly superior would this be to a 
frittering away of time in acquiring intellectual decora- 
tions and trimmings ; in learning valueless pieces of 
music, especially, as in most cases, when there is no 
likelihood or possibility of real artistic excellence; of 
obtaining a cursory and unhomogeneous acquaintance 
with literature. Such a better knowledge would pro- 
mote the mother's authority, and strengthen the child's 
feeling of respect. Not only would she be better able 
to deal with the varying phases of the budding mind, 
but also she would be able to foresee what those phases 
would be apt to be, their rightful interpretation, their 
relative importance and their imperative needs in 
treatment. In the face of this information, she would 
rightly regard herself as having some claim on the 
respect which ought to be attached to the proud name 
of mother, on the prerogatives and privileges which 
belong to the noblest vocation in life. 



282 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

In addition to this, she must recognize that her 
duties, while partly philosophical, also have their prac- 
tical side. The little body that is absolutely in her 
power and care must be fed and nurtured, must receive 
the physical materials upon which it works in order to 
elaborate bone and muscle and nerve tissue. These 
materials should be so prepared as to give the maxi- 
mum amount of return in strength for the minimum 
amount of energy expended in converting them for the 
uses of the organism. Thus the question of food be- 
comes one of basal importance. The mother should 
thoroughly know the constitution of the usual articles 
of diet, their chemical value, what elements of strength 
each is capable of giving and the differential distinc- 
tions between them. She should know not only their 
ordinary methods of preparation, but also the reasons 
for these methods, their respective values, and their 
proper effect upon the general economy. Such a 
knowledge of applied chemistry is certainly not over- 
difficult of acquirement, is easily obtained in the time 
usually devoted to the ordinary school work, especially 
in the more advanced grades, and at the same time has 
all the advantages of intellectual exercise which girls 
now receive. It undoubtedly has as many of these ad- 
vantages as political economy — as now taught — can 
give, as proficiency in the Delsartean system, or as 
practice in sketching and painting can give. It would 
confer more of intrinsic value instead of extrinsic at- 



THE PROFESSION OF MATERNITY 283 

traction. A girl thus taught might have less coquetry, 
less of the art of simpering delicacy, less of the falla- 
cious faculty of casual fascination. But on the other 
hand, she would be able to order her child's nourish- 
ment to the end of conserving all the actual and 
potential energy of which he is capable, she would be 
able to provide an intelligent method of restoring 
wasted tissue, she would know how to supply the easi- 
est means of adding new materials from which new 
elements may grow. Under such a regime there would 
be fewer complaints of reflex nervous disorders depend- 
ing upon an irritated gastro-intestinal system and mal- 
assimilation of food. And with these reflex conditions 
removed, a fertile cause of serious mental and nervous 
irregularities would simultaneously vanish. 

Besides this, the whole growth of the body and the 
interdependence of its various parts would be more 
even, more nicely balanced. It is true that the mental 
maturity might not come so rapidly, but this, instead 
of being a disadvantage, would act as an advantage ; 
for one should remember that a too rapid maturity is 
apt to be pathological or, at least, productive of one- 
sidedness. Parents rarely realize how much the ques- 
tion of diet has to do with the normal, healthy tone of 
their children's minds, how closely it concerns their 
peacefulness, their cheerfulness, their temperateness, 
their susceptibility to legitimate influence. Many a 
time a close observer will notice an intimate connec- 



284 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

tion between vicious traits and a vicious diet. And 
a woman who clearly understands the methods and 
rationale of preparing and combining foods is apt to 
do more real good than any physician by reconstruc- 
tive measures can hope to accomplish. If to such an 
understanding she adds an equal acquaintance with 
the common and known truths of hygiene, her worth 
to herself, her family and the community will be tre- 
mendously increased. By such information she would 
protect the family health, she would make the general 
environment more conducive to a clear functional 
activity. In some schools at the present time a sub- 
ject called "hygiene" is taught; but its treatment is 
so slight and unpractical that its value is almost 
naught. Under a better system the student would 
really be benefited. She would be able intelligently 
to discriminate between proper and improper methods 
of clothing, between proper and improper systems 
of ventilation, between healthful and harmful physical 
surroundings. Such a woman could never be guilty 
of so elementary a matter as allowing a child to run 
about in cold weather wearing short socks, leaving a 
portion of the leg exposed to the risk of congestive 
influences ; she would know what were the demands 
of sufificient drainage and plumbing ; she would have 
some idea of the value of a scientific cleanliness. By 
her knowledge of such matters as the conduction of 
heat, of the requirements of a healthful and sufificient 



THE PROFESSION OF MATERNITY 285 

water supply, she would promote the comfort and well- 
being of those who were dependent upon her guarding 
care. 

Such studies might advantageously form part of a 
training which would infinitely promote the health, 
prosperity and right development of the community. 
They would convert a great body of more or less use- 
less women into most valuable workers. That some 
change in occupation and training is necessary there 
can be no doubt. And the well-known restlessness, 
dissatisfaction and discontent of modern women is one 
proof of it. An increasing number of them complain 
continually of seeing no object in life, of having noth- 
ing to work for, of having no goal by which to guide 
their ways. Unquestionably a reason for this is the 
fact that the old ideas are passing away. There is a 
common consciousness that old-time methods may be 
made better, that women are as susceptible of im- 
provement in their ways as men are. They have felt 
and are feeling more acutely than ever the controlling 
spirit of the time which is revolutionary, iconoclastic, 
sceptical of rule-of-thumb methods by which our ances- 
tors were guided. One can easily imagine why it is 
that the large body of women are striving for normal 
activity, are trying to secure by any manner of means 
a release from an environment which makes them in- 
feriors of their fathers, husbands and brothers. The 
reason is in large part based on the feeling that their 



286 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

sphere of work is somewhat trivial, that their range 
of influence is not important enough for their dignity. 
Under a better custom things would change. Rather 
would they then look upon themselves as different, 
not inferior. They would recognize that the differ- 
ence between men and women is a matter of mental 
and physical constitution. And a difference in con- 
stitution means a difference in function. When this 
becomes clearly known, when women feel within them- 
selves the responsibilities of definite and useful ac- 
tivity and with this recognize the normal and right 
field for their abilities, there will be less of an outcry 
against the " unnatural competition " between brother 
and sister, husband and wife. The more clearly each 
one recognizes his limitations and proper field of en- 
deavor, the sooner will a more tolerable condition of 
affairs come about. And as soon as their recognition 
is definite and clear cut, there will grow up in women 
as in men, a triumphant demand for the best prepara- 
tion that will fit them for their proper activity. 

The world has always recognized that a woman's 
natural and highest sphere is that of mother, and the 
woman who best embodied the mother-ideal has always 
been the subject of the sincerest worship. In the 
changes incident to modern life the fact that the 
means for attaining this ideal may be altered has 
been lost sight of. As a result of historical experi- 
ence, women have been in the habit of looking upon 



THE PROFESSION OF MATERNITY 287 

maternity too much in the light of an incident, as an 
accident of life which may come as sickness or revo- 
lution in affairs may come, and for which no adequate 
preparation (outside of a financial preparation) can or 
need be made. But nowadays we know better than 
that ; we know that when a woman has the opportu- 
nity of putting herself in an environment which has 
always and must always represent the highest point 
in her ambitions, when as a result of this she assumes 
responsibilities which transcend in importance those 
of almost any profession or calling, when we know 
that these responsibilities may be wisely or unwisely 
administered, and that there is a large range of sub- 
jects which can rightly form the basis of preparation 
for administering them, then one may say that in such 
work lies the finest vocation that a mounting ambition 
could desire. One must say that in the profession of 
maternity lies the hope of the time, the cure for the 
restlessness, the discontent and the chagrin that tor- 
ment the feminine world. One may rightly call it a 
cure, because it not only provides a method of absorp- 
tion of restless energy, giving an outlet for the exer- 
cise of every faculty of which a woman is capable, 
but also because it has for its object the highest aim 
toward which men have ever cast their eyes : the 
betterment of the individual and the race. 

However, the absorption of restlessness is really a 
secondary matter. The main consideration is, that any 



288 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

woman has a right to look forward to making a career 
in the world for herself, and that this right is founded 
upon much the same grounds which support the antici- 
pations for a life work of her brother. So long as one 
recognizes this, one must likewise recognize the neces- 
sity of ascertaining in what directions the girl's possi- 
bilities tend, what her sphere of greatest usefulness 
really is, and what the best means of culture therein 
are. So long as she is considered capable of filling the 
noble position of a mother, so long as there is a hope 
of her assuming its duties and obligations, the question 
about the choice of a vocation for her has simultane- 
ously been answered. Lamentations concerning the 
"unsexing of women by stress of industrial life," con- 
cerning the ruinous competition between men and 
women, would have no reason for existence. It must 
be evident that the ideal industrial condition is ob- 
tained, not so much by putting each person in a cutting 
competition with his neighbor, but by so regulating 
opportunities that every one has the work for which he 
is best designed. So far as women are concerned, 
there is little or no attempt at the present to do this. 
Whatever training they obtain is usually of the most 
general kind. This in itself is sad enough ; but what 
is still worse is that no idea of the seriousness of the 
deficiency is generally appreciated. If a similar con- 
ception in regard to any one of the recognized trades or 
professions were held, one would be justified in believ- 



THE PROFESSION OF MATERNITY 289 

ing that the occupation could not possibly be of much 
importance. Therefore, it is quite remarkable that, in 
the matter of the most vital trust which can be reposed 
upon a human being, thoughtful and conscientious 
persons should not long ago have recognized the neces- 
sities of the case, and after recognizing them insisted 
upon a proper provision for answering them. The facts 
that women are from the beginning designed especially 
for the profession of maternity, that by following it 
they best fulfil all their physical and mental functions, 
and that the paramount value of this work is plain and 
clear, make the claims of this vocation upon our 
respectful consideration exceedingly strong. So long 
as this is true, the conclusion must follow that the main 
part of the preparatory training of girls, even though 
the present customs and ideals be thereby wholly 
altered, should be formed upon what the requirements 
of the main work in her life dictate. When the premi- 
ses are once admitted, it is nothing less than wanton 
neglect and stultification to deny in any part the inevi- 
table conclusion. 

The change in the educational life of woman here 
indicated is so radical from what is now in vogue, that 
one may be apt to think it chimerical, that v.'omen will 
always insist on having a large decorative element in 
their training. To set the doubt at rest one need 
merely call to mind the changed standards of customs 
and living which have occurred in the last few years. 



290 THE DEVELOPiMENT OF THE CHILD 

The very life of women in numberless details has 
changed so much that our grandmothers would never 
have been able to imagine the conditions of their de- 
scendants. Even in far other matters, even where the 
controlling force is as rigorous and inevitable as com- 
mercial demands, the spirit of the time insists so strik- 
ingly on progress and so sharply stimulates endeavor, 
that what was impossible yesterday becomes to-day not 
only possible, but commonplace. Not so many years 
ago Herbert Spencer, in writing about the limitations 
of human work and knowledge, said : " Numerous at- 
tempts have been made to construct electro-magnetic 
engines, in the hope of superseding steam ; but had 
those who supplied the money understood the general 
law of the correlation and equivalence of forces, they 
might have had better balances at their bankers." 
When this sentence was written the futility of the 
scheme in question seemed so apparent that even a 
man like Spencer, a man of great knowledge, wisdom 
and scientific imagination, could see nothing more in 
the idea of superseding steam by electricity than a 
wild project that sober minds could never entertain. 
Nevertheless, such motors are in use to-day, are suc- 
cessfully run, and bid fair in time to abolish the use 
of steam. 

Ever so much more easily could the view-points in 
the education of women be altered. Not only are 
women amenable to the change, but also they would 



THE PROFESSION OF MATERNITY 29 1 

welcome it as deliverance from the reputed intellect- 
ual bondage in which so many of them believe that 
they are held. In addition, the quality of the time 
demands the change. What women are asking for is 
not so much an increase in ease and luxury, an increase 
in the decorative and fantastic elements in life ; on the 
contrary, more than ever before, I believe, do they long 
for a high grade of usefulness, for the possibility of 
making a career for themselves. Such an ambition, 
capable of all nobility, striving and self-sacrifice, can 
never be gratified under the conditions of our present 
education. The elements of satisfying such emotions 
do not in large enough degree exist. But under con- 
ditions which would bring about an immeasurable 
uplifting in the standards of physical, mental and spir- 
itual existence, there could be no limit to the useful 
work which would lie at their hands. Under such 
auspices, marriage would become easier, its disabilities 
lighter, its reasons stronger than ever. Much of the 
present " unnatural competition " would have no reason 
for existence and so would cease to exist. The com- 
munity would have more time in which to live, for the 
time, effort and value that are consumed by faulty 
methods of management would act as clear gain. Not 
the least among the advancing steps of the age will 
be the recognition of the duties, the emoluments and 
the comparative value of maternity, and when the 
preparation for it assumes the dignity of a professional 



292 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 

training and the fulfilment of its obligations and pos- 
sibilities, the best ideal of a fine career, the world must 
see that it has taken a great stride along the path of 
its natural evolution. 



INDEX 



Abdominal aorta, relation in size to 
common iliac arteries, 42. 

Alberson, 149. 

Alveoli of lungs, 42, 43. 

Amoeba, 207. 

Amylopsin, 47. 

Annulus tympanicus, 26. 

Aorta, relation in size to pulmonary 
artery, 41. 

Apes, platyrhine, 30. 

Aristotle, 93. 

Aryans, 124. 

Atlas, 32. 

Bacchic orgies, 129. 

Bacon, 93. 

Baer, 177. 

Basi-occipital bone, 22. 

Basi-sphenoidal bone, 22. 

Beranger, 177. 

Best on Evidence, 149. 

Bile, 39. 

Binswanger, 54. 

Bishop, W., 230. 

Bladder, 49. 

Blind Tom, 217, 230. 

Blood, in infants, 17, 18. 

specific gravity of, 17. 
Body-plasm, 80. 
Bone elements, comparative table of, 

16. 
Bones, 16. 

development of long, 19. 

Wormian, 177. 
Brain, 52, 53. 

cells of, 55. 

convolutions of, 53. 



Bramans, origin of, 124. 
Bronchi, 42, 43. 
Bushmen, African, 217. 
Australian, 132. 

Caecum, 47, 48. 

Cassar, 232. 

Cajal, 59. 

California system of child-caring, 259. 

Camp-meetings, excitement of, 129. 

Cartilage, 17. 

Cartilages, costal, 33. 

Caterpillar, 11, 12. 

Celts, origin of, 124. 

Cerebellum, 53, 61. 

vermis of, 61. 
Chest, proportions of, 34. 
Chromatin, 59. 
Chronic constipation, 49. 
Clavicle, right, 35. 
Clavicles, 33. 
Clouston, 207. 
Coccyx, 51, 
Code of criminal procedure, New 

York state, 150. 
Colon, ascending, 47. 

ascending, mesentery of, 48. 

ascending, peritonaeum of, 48. 

transverse, 47, 
Comenius, 93. 
Conus arteriosus, 35. 
Corpora quadrigemina, 56. 
Corre, 177. 
Cranium, comparative dimensions of, 

23- 
Credulity, natural, 127. 
Crime, climate as cause of, 191. 



293 



294 



INDEX 



Crime, destitution as cause of, 180. 

diet as cause of, 192. 

drunkenness as cause of, 181. 

environment as cause of, 193. 

heredity as cause of, 183. 

ignorance as cause of, 178. 

weather as cause of, 192. 
Crishna, 125. 
Cro-Magnon race, 71. 
Cyril, 127, 

Darwin, 73. 
Dase, 2i8. 
Degeneracy, 238. 
Dendron, 58. 
Despine, Prosper, 177. 
Devaki, 126. 
Diana, 127. 
Diaphragm, 42. 
Diehl, Conrad, 116, 117. 
Dionysius, 125. 
Dordogne, 71. 
Dugdale, 188, 189, 201. 
Duodenum, 48. 
Dura Mater, 21. 

Ear, 25. 
Ear drum, 26. 
Epiglottis, 32. 
Epilepsy, •]■]. 
Erasmus, 93. 
Eustachian tube, 26, 27. 

relation to hard palate, 26. 

Face, comparative dimensions of, 21, 
22. 
growth of, 23. 
Fatigue, effects of, in the young, 89. 
Fehling, 13. 
Femoral artery, 45. 
Fermentation, intestinal, 168. 
Fetteroff, 264. 
Fibrinogen, 18. 
Firnald, 221. 
Fissure of Rolando, 54. 



Fissure of Sylvius, 54, 

Flechsig, 56. 

Fontanelles, 20. 

Foramen caecum, 21. 

Foramen magnum, 23. 

Foramen ovale, 36. 

Frederick William I., 93, 

Frigga, 26. 

Froebel, 93, 96, 97, 98, 115, 256. 

Frontal bone, orbital plate of, 21. 

Frontal sinus, 21. 

Gall bladder, 38. 
Galton, 67, 146. 
Gambara, 177. 
Garofalo, 176. 
Geggenbiihl, 218. 
Genius, the, 230, 231. 
Germ-plasm, 79. 
Girard College, 263. 
Glands, Brunner's, 48. 

lachrymal, 25. 

Lieberkiihn's, 48. 

prostate, 49. 

ptyalin-forming, 31, 

solitary and agminated, 48. 
God, child's conception of, 133, 165. 
Goethe, 235. 

Goltz, experiments of, 52. 
Greeks, origin of, 124. 
Greenleaf, on Evidence, 150. 
Gundobin, 18. 

Hailman, W. N., 99. 

Hare-lip, 28. 

Heart, " milk spot" of, 36. 

proportions of, 35. 

relation in size to arterial system, 41. 

relation in size to liver, 40. 
Hercules, 125. 
Herodotus, 126. 
Hodge, 53. 
Holder, von, 176. 
Horus, 127. 
Howard, 220. 



INDEX 



295 



Infarctions, uric acid, 44. 

Inferior turbinated bone, 27, 

Ireland, Dr., 214. 

Isis, 126. 

Italians, origin of, 124. 

Jaw, upper, 22. 

upper, ramus of, 24. 
Jews, ancient, 123. 

descent of, 71, 72. 
Joyce, Dr., 108. 
Jukes, 188. 

Keilhau, 97. 

Kidneys, development of, 44. 

Knee joint, development of, 19. 

Larynx, 32. 

Laurent, 152, 177. 

Lavelaye, de, 64. 

Liver, development of, 37. 

Lombroso, 61. 

Longet, experiments of, 52. 

Lourdes, 139. 

Lowell, Mrs. J. S., 252. 

Lymphatic system, 48. 

Macula lutea, 25. 

Malpighi, pyramids of, 44. 

Marimo, 177. 

Marrow, 17. 

Massachusetts system of child-caring, 

258. 
Mastoid bone, 19, 20. 
Mastoid process, 20. 
Maudesley, 122. 
Maya- Maya, 126. 
Meatus of ear, 26. 

Medes and Persians, origin of, 124. 
Mediastinum, 32. 
Medulla oblongata, 56. 
Membrana tympani, 26. 
Metteay, 255. 

Michigan system of child-caring, 250. 
Mithras, 125. 



Moral Revival, i. 
Morals, training in, 142. 
Morrison, 180, 181, 187. 
Mouth, cavity of, 24. 
Muscles, 17. 

Napoleon, 233. 
Nasal cavity, 24. 
Naso-pharynx, 24. 

Nerve branches, development of, 57. 
Nerve cells, functions of, 208, 210, 211. 
Neuron, 58. 

New Hampshire system of child- 
caring, 259. 
New South Wales, 257. 
New York system of child-caring, 258. 
Nose, growth of, 27, 28. 

Obersteiner, 77. 

Occipital bone, union with spheroid 

bone, 20. 
Ogle, 179. 
Orbit, 21, 

Orbit, relation to nose, 24. 
Osiris, 125. 
Ossicles, auditory, 25. 

Palate, hard, 24. 
Palate, soft, 30. 
Parker, 128. 
Patterson, 150. 
Payaguas, 132. 
Perinasum, 50. 

fasciag of, 50. 
Pestalozzi, 93, 96, 97, 256, 
Petro-squamous suture, 20. 
Pons varolii, 56. 
Predisposition, 75, 76. 
Prenated diseases, 76. 
Prenatal impressions, 78. 
Preyer, 61, 
Protozoa, 68. 
Psychical trauma, 170. 
Ptyalin, 31. 
Puikinje, cells of, 53. 



296 



INDEX 



Ranke, 226. 
Recessus opticus, 25. 
Rectum, 48, 49. 

peritonaeum, 49. 

prolapse of, 49. 
Renin, 47. 
Ribs, 33. 34- 
Richardson, Mrs., 260, 
Richter, 177. 
Robinson, L., 60, 
Russell, 135, 156. 

Sachs, 209. 

Secretan, M. Charles, 2. 

Seguin, 213, 217, 219, 

Semele, 126. 

Sernoff, 54. 

Serum, specific gravity of, 17. 

Shamanism, 129. 

Shuttleworth, 213. 

Sigmoid flexure, 47, 48. 

Siva worship, 129. 

Skull, comparative dimensions of, 23. 

Slavonic nations, origin of, 124. 

Socrates, 93. 

Soubirous, Bernadette, 139. 

Spencer, Herbert, 100, 290, 

Sphenoidal sinus, 21. 

Sphenoid bone, union with occipital 

bone, 20. 
Sphincter, oesophageal, 46. 
Spine, 50, 51. 
Spleen, 39. 
Steapsin, 47. 
Sternum, 32, 33. 
Stomach, development of, 46. 

Taylor, on Evidence, 151. 
Teeth — 

bicuspids, 29. 

canines, 29. 

incisors, 29. 

molars, 29. 

molar, fourth, 30. 



Teeth — 

alveolar processes of, 28. 

coronoid processes of, 29. 

development of, 28, 29. 

milk, 29. 
Temporal bone, parietal portion of, 

24 ; squamous portion of, 23. 
Terra del Fuegians, 132. 
Tertullian, 126. 
Teutons, 70. 
Thymus gland, 31. 
Thyroid gland, 32. 
Tongue, development of, 30 ; follicles 

of, 31. 
Tonsil, pharyngeal, 31. 
Trachea, 33. 
Tragus of ear, 26. 
Trypsin, 47. 
Tuberculosis, debilitating effects of, 

213, 214 ; transmission of, 76. 
Tympanum (middle ear), 21. 

Urethra, 49. 
Uterus, 49. 
Uvula, 31. 

Victoria, 257, 

Vierordt's table of comparative per- 
centages, 15. 
Vision in new-born child, 25. 
Vomer, 23. 

Wagner, 234. 

Warner, 198. 

Washington, 233. 

Water, proportion of, in foetus, 13. 

Wharton, 151. 

Whitwell, 226. 

Whirling dervishes, 129. 

Wichern, 255. 

Yverdun, 96, 97. 

Zygomata (cheek bones), 23. 



THE STUDY OF CHILDREN AND THEIR 
SCHOOL TRAINING. 



By FRANCIS WARNER, M.D. 
i2nio. Cloth. Price $1.00, net. 



A practical book. The conclusions are based on FACTS, not theories, gained 
by Dr. Warner from tlie examinations of 100,000 school children. Parents and 
teachers are shown what observations to make and hoiu to make them. Sug- 
gestions for overcoming many puzzling difficulties are given. No more valua- 
ble book for those interested in the study of children has been published. 

" This is a volume singularly clear and exact in its expression and definite in 
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have in any language. We believe that the publication of this volume will exert 
a profound and far-reaching influence for good in aiding teachers and parents 
in doing the best that can be done with children in various phases in life." — 
Journal of Pedagogy. 

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fit to teachers in all grades of educational work. I trust it may find its way into 
the hands of a great many teachers and parents, for I feel it is of genuine merit, 
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O'Shea, University of Wisconsin. 

" I regard this volume as one of the very best contributions yet made on the 
subject of Child Study." — J. M. GREENWOOD, Si^pt. of City Schools, Kansas 
City, Mo. 

" This book seems to us an extremely suggestive and important one for teach- 
ers and parents; and being simply written, and free from technicalities, it may 
be understood and applied with ease by any reader." — TAe Dial. 

"The physical side of child development which has been frequently ignored 
is here presented in a very forcible and practical manner. The book will be 
most valuable to Kindergartners, and to all, mothers and teachers and students, 
who are interested in Child Study." — Miss Hilda Johnson, President of 
Kindergarten Unioti, N. Y. City. 

" The Study of Children is a most valuable book that should have a very 
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an original, strong, and thoroughly satisfactory work." — Boston Saturday Even- 
ing Gazette. 

" There is no better statement than is here given of the way to study a child. 
Dr. W^arner tells what to look for and what to look at." — Journal of Education, 

"The book is indispensable to the teacher's library, and is full of information 
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" The Study of Children and their School Training is one of the most valiia- 
ble contributions yet made to the literature of scientific education. It contains 
information of interest to all who are intelligently awake to the progress of edu- 
cational movement and other forms of social work connected with mental 
science." — Philadelphia Evening Telegraph. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 

I 



MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 

IN 

THE CHILD AND THE RACE. 

BY 

JAMES MARK BALDWIN, M.A., Ph.D., 

With Seventeen Figures and Ten Tables. 8vo. pp. xvi, 496. Cloth. 
Price, $2.60. 

Second Reprint of Second Edition, 1898. 

Translated into French and German. 



FROM THE PRESS. 



" It is of the greatest value and importance." — TAe Outlook. 

" A most valuable contribution to biological psychology." — TAe Critic. 

" Baldwin's book is certainly the most important work which has appeared on 
genetic psychology since those of Spencer and Romanes ; it has equal value for the 
psychologist and the biologist." — L. Marillier in Annee Biologique. 

" Considering all that Baldwin has brought to light in this remarkable book, we 
have to say that it marks a turning-point in the development of physiological psy- 
chology." — E. Reich in the Rundschau. 

"This summary sketch can give no idea of the variety of topics which Professor 
Baldwin handles, or of the originality with which his central thesis is worked out. 
No psychologist can afford to neglect the book." — The Dial. 

" Baldwin's gebiihrt das Gedienst zuerst die Vorarbeiten zusammengefasst und 
in engen zusammenhang mit der physiologischen Psychologic des Erwachsenen 
eine physiologische Psychologie des kindes versucht zu haben. Der Versuch ist 
gelungen." — Th. Ziehen, in Preface to German translation. 

" A book . . . treating of a subject fraught with significant revelations for every 
branch of educational science is Professor J. Mark Baldwin's treatise on Mental 
Development in ' The Child and the Race.' Professor Baldwin's work is compara- 
tively untechnical in character and written in a terse and vigorous style, so that it 
will commend itself to unprofessional readers. Having been led by his studies and 
experiments with his two little daughters to a profound appreciation of the genetic 
function of imitation, he has sought to work out a theory of mental development in 
the child incorporating this new insight. A clear understanding of the mental de- 
velopment of the individual child necessitates a doctrine of the race development 
of consciousness — the great problem of the evolution of mind. Accordingly Pro- 
fessor Baldwin has endeavored to link together the current biological theory of 
organic adaptation with the doctrine of the infant's development as that has been 
fashioned by his own wide, special researches. Readers will understand the import 
of a theory which seeks to unite and explain one by the other the psychological 
aspects of ontogenesis and phylogenesis. As Professor Baldwin says, it is the 
problem of Spencer and Romanes attacked from a new and fruitful point of view. 
There is no one but can be interested in the numerous and valuable results which 
Professor Baldwin has recorded; teachers, parents, and psychologists alike will 
find in his work a wealth of suggestive matter." — The Open Court. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 



A COURSE OF LECTURES 

ON THE 

GROWTH AND MEANS OF TRAINING 

THE 

MENTAL FACULTY. 

DELIVERED IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. 



FRANCIS WARNER, M.D. (Lond.), 
F.R.C.P., F.R.C.S. (Eng.), 

Physician to the London Hospital; Lecturer on Therapeutics and on Botany at the 

London Hospital College ; Formerly Hiinterian Professor of Attatomy 

and Physiology in the Royal College of Surgeons of England. 



i2ino. Cloth. Price, 90 cents, net. 



NOTICES. 

" It is original, thorough, systematic, and wonderfully suggestive. 
Every superintendent should study this book. Few works have 
appeared lately which treat the subject under consideration with 
such originality, vigor, or good sense." — Education. 

" A valuable little treatise on the physiological signs of mental 
life in children, and on the right way to observe these signs and 
classify pupils accordingly. . . . The book has great originality, 
and though somewhat clumsily put together, it should be very help- 
ful to the teacher on a side of his work much neglected by the 
ordinary treatises on pedagogy." — Literary IVorld. 

" The eminence and experience of the author, and the years of 
careful study he has devoted to this and kindred subjects, are a 
sufficient guarantee for the value of the book ; but those who are 
fortunate enough to examine it will find their expectations more than 
fulfilled. ... A great deal may be learned from these lectures, 
and we strongly commend them to our readers." — Canada Educa- 
tional Journal. 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 



AN OUTLINE OF PSYCHOLOGY. 



EDWARD BRADFORD TITCHENER, A.M., Ph.D., 
Sage Professor of Psychology at the Cornell University. 

Second Edition with Corrections. 

8vo. Cloth. $1.50, net. 



" As a contribution both able and useful, Professor Titchener's volume will unques- 
tionably find, as it deserves, a most cordial welcome. In many ways it is the most ser- 
viceable text-book of psychology from a modern scientific point of view that has been 
written. The author is an experimentalist, but clings to the special interpretation of 
certain fundamental principles which is characteristic of Wundt and his disciples. The 
result of this definite position is to make the work clear, exact in expression, systematic, 
methodical. The work is thoroughly good and useful." — Joseph Jastrow, University 
of Wisconsin, in the Dial. 



A PRIMER OF PSYCHOLOGY. 



EDWARD BRADFORD TITCHENER, 

M.A. (Oxon.), Ph.D. (Leipzig), 

Sage Professor of Psychology in the Cornell University. 
izmo. Cloth. $1.00, net. 



This volume is intended as a first book in psychology. It will therefore seek 
to accomplish the two main ends of a scientific primer of the subject; to out- 
line, with as little of technical detail as is compatible with accuracy of state- 
ment, the methods and most important results of modern psychology, and to 
furnish the reader with references for further study. It will be written with 
direct regard to the courses of psychological instruction offered in Normal 
Schools and High Schools, but will at the same time be made sufficiently com- 
prehensive to give the general student a fair idea of the present status of 
psychology in its various branches. 

A novel feature of the work will be the emphasis laid on the experimental 
method. A short list of simple and inexpensive apparatus will be given, with 
directions for their use in the class-room, and the experiments described will be 
such as can be performed by their aid or by help of others that can readily be 
constructed by the teacher himself. Diagrams, psychological not physiological 
in character, will be freely used in illustration of the text. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 

66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 



THE CHILD AND CHILDHOOD 

IN FOLK-THOUGHT. 

(The Child in Primitive Culture.) 

Studies of the Activities and Influences of the Child among 

Primitive Peoples, their Analogues and Survivals 

in the Civilization of To-day. 



ALEXANDER FRANCIS CHAMBERLAIN, M.A., Ph.D., 
Lecturer on Anthropology in Clark University, Worcester, Mass.; etc., etc 

8vo. Cloth. $3.00, net. 



" It is an exhaustive study of " child thought " in all ages, and 
will fully interest every class of students in child study. . . . The 
teacher of kindergarten will find texts of value upon every page of 
the book." — Chicago Inter-Ocean. 

" It is, of course, keenly interesting. One can turn to the copious 
index and select a topic here, topic there, turn to pages indicated, 
and find a wonderful amount of information drawn from authentic 
sources by patient scientific investigation. This investigation 
covers the entire range of childhood, child life, child care, and child 
development." — Buffalo Commercial. 

" The author is an anthropologist, whose dominant interest and 
training are the philology, rites, customs, and beliefs of primitive 
people. The book is the first and only one of the kind in English, 
and is sure to fascinate parents of young children as well as to in- 
struct all teachers and psychologists. It marks a distinct advance 
in child study." — American Journal of Psychology. 

" Not the least valuable thing about the book is its suggestiveness. 
There is hardly a section that does not furnish a subject for detailed 
investigation to the anthropological psychologist." — Mind. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 

ee FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 



FEB SU lyu'f 



